Lightweight, high‑performance cold plate development using additive manufacturing and generative design
Business challenge
Product Innovation
Process Innovation
Sustainability & Net Zero
Sector
Aerospace
Electrification
Defence & Security
Technology or capability
Additive Manufacturing
Product Design
Simulation & Modelling
Rising power densities in aerospace and automotive electronics continue to push the boundaries of thermal management. As devices become smaller yet more powerful, heat generation increases within tightly constrained spaces. Without effective heat dissipation, components face temperature spikes, reduced performance, and shorter operational life. MTC collaborated with ToffeeX to explore advanced digital engineering and metal additive manufacturing methods to develop an optimised cold plate that delivers improved thermal performance while significantly reducing weight.
Project Challenges
Electronics in aerospace and automotive applications are producing increasingly high heat loads within compact form factors. Traditional thermal management approaches struggle to dissipate this heat effectively without adding significant mass, complexity, or manufacturing constraints.
The key challenges included:
- Managing ever increasing heat densities without compromising performance or reliability.
- Developing a lightweight solution capable of enhancing heat transfer efficiency.
- Overcoming the geometric limitations of conventional manufacturing to explore more radical design possibilities.
MTC’s Solution
MTC deployed a combined digital and manufacturing innovation approach to maximise thermal, structural, and flow performance:
- Material selection: CP1 aluminium alloy was chosen for its excellent thermal conductivity and suitability for additive manufacturing.
- Generative design: Using ToffeeX’s cloud-based physics guided software, MTC generated optimised internal geometries tailored for heat transfer, pressure drop reduction, manufacturing process and lightweighting. Siemens NX was employed for design-space CAD modelling, as well as for the subsequent redesign of the geometry based on the optimisation results.
- Advanced manufacturing: Laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) was selected to manufacture the complex, organic design features that cannot be produced using conventional methods.
We’re proud of this collaboration with the MTC because it clearly shows what’s possible when
physics-driven generative design and advanced manufacturing work together in a single, seamless workflow. Instead of being limited by traditional approaches, engineers can dramatically extend their design capabilities with topology optimisation, transforming a standard serpentine cold plate into a highly efficient, additively manufactured thermal solution in just a few design cycles.
Senthan Baskaralingam (Senior Global Sales Manager at ToffeeX)
The adoption of advanced design methodologies such as generative design and topology optimisation has the potential to significantly reduce product development costs. When combined with the design flexibility enabled by advanced manufacturing technologies—such as additive manufacturing—these approaches support the creation of high-performance, lightweight, and sustainable thermal management solutions
Sandeep Samanthula, Technical Lead, MTC
The outcome
The project successfully demonstrated how generative design and metal additive manufacturing can unlock major improvements in thermal management components.
Key results included:
- A 48% reduction in weight compared to the baseline serpentine cold plate.
- A 50% reduction in pressure drop, improving system level efficiency.
- A 12% reduction in maximum junction temperature, directly boosting thermal performance.
- Successful demonstration of manufacturability using PBF-LB, producing a functional prototype that was tested on a dedicated thermal rig.
Benefits to the client/industry
- A major step towards next generation Net Zero technologies, improving energy efficiency and minimising environmental impact.
- Reduced weight and material use, lowering production costs and improving system level sustainability.
- Faster design cycles, enabled through digital workflows and physics driven optimisation.
- Breakthrough innovation, with generative design producing high performing geometries beyond conventional engineering intuition.
- Proven route to manufacture, enabling industry adoption of advanced thermal management solutions.
- The capabilities developed are highly transferable and can be immediately leveraged in the processing and energy generation industries, as well as across the fast‑moving consumer goods sector.
