3D Printed Cubes Provide Passive Cooling

Passive evaporative cooling has been used for centuries to reduce temperatures. Heat is drawn off as water evaporates, which in turn reduces temperature. The more efficiently this process happens the ….

3D Printed Cubes Provide Passive Cooling. The more efficiently this process happens the greater the temperature differential, and that’s exactly what the 3D-printed structure pictured above aims for. Created at the Graz University of Technology in Austria, the cubes noticeably reduce surrounding air temperature thanks to their careful construction.

The key is exposing the maximum amount of water to the maximum amount of airflow, and there are two ways the prototype cooling wall — which is 3D printed from a special clay mixture — does this. First, the macro design of the 3D-printed blocks maximizes surface area. If the cube in the image above looks familiar, that’s because it’s the gyroid infill pattern.

Gyroid is a porous pattern with no “dead ends” or closed sections, and the fact that it 3D prints cleanly with no supports also makes it an ideal structural candidate.