Architected materials research
Tecnológico de Monterrey
I designed and built a thermal-conductivity test system to study how printed polymers move heat—part of research into lightweight protection for lithium-ion batteries.
01 / Mechanical design + drawings
I developed two purpose-built enclosures around the experiment: a modular guard for the thermal stack and a serviceable controls case for the electronics, interface, and wiring. The final package includes the CAD assemblies and exploded drawings for both enclosures, with part callouts and bills of materials.
02 / The purpose
A damaged lithium-ion cell can enter thermal runaway: a self-heating reaction that may propagate through a battery pack and end in fire or explosion. Active cooling can move heat during normal operation, but a protective structure may also need to dissipate heat and carry impact loads after a crash.
The long-term research question is whether an architected material can do both. By controlling internal geometry instead of adding solid mass, a lightweight case could create continuous heat paths while retaining the structure needed for mechanical protection.
Research questionCan geometry make a polymer carry heat more effectively without giving up the structure needed to protect a battery?
This phase builds the thermal evidence and measurement platform. It does not claim a finished battery enclosure or completed crash validation.
03 / Research lineage
The work began from a rigorous thesis foundation, then moved into a new phase of literature review, design, instrumentation, testing, and analysis.
César's master's thesis established the thermomechanical framework, built the first comparative conduction apparatus, tested a broad family of porous structures, and used design-of-experiments and FEA to identify promising architectures.
“Thermomechanical Properties of Architected Materials” · Tecnológico de Monterrey
04 / Method
Revisit heat transfer, TPMS behavior, composite pathways, and prior findings.
Generate controlled Gyroid and Diamond geometry in nTop.
Print matched 50.8 mm × 7 mm sandwich specimens in Onyx and Nylon.
Drive one-dimensional heat flow through the sample under a 60 N load.
Filter thermocouple noise, calculate effective conductivity, and compare replicates.
Implicit sample modeling · nTop
Controlled geometry
Every specimen used a 1 mm solid skin, a 5 mm porous core, and a second 1 mm skin. Holding the external geometry and print strategy constant made topology and material the variables that mattered.
05 / Unit-cell geometry
A triply periodic minimal surface repeats one small volume throughout the porous core. I compared two of those repeating cells—Diamond and Gyroid—inside the same specimen envelope so the internal pathway, rather than the outside dimensions, drove the comparison.
Unit-cell renders from the project model; the research specimens were generated in nTop.
06 / The apparatus
The core comparative-longitudinal method came from the thesis. The V2 work transformed that research setup into a more controlled system with modular guards, improved alignment, protected sensors, an enclosed controller, and a deliberate operator interface.
Measurement architecture
Copper meter bars sit above and below the specimen. Four calibrated thermocouples measure the gradients used to calculate effective conductivity, while Peltier modules, a heatsink, and a fan control the cold side. The guard reduces radial loss and keeps the heat path close to one-dimensional.
07 / Controls + acquisition
I wrote the Arduino control system as an operator-facing experiment: guided test phases, live sensor values, a compact trend display, temperature safety logic, and synchronized logging to both SD and a serial data stream.
Live menu, thermal cycle, and spreadsheet logging
08 / Thermal results
Each material-topology combination was run three times. The values below are the reported mean effective thermal conductivities after smoothing the steady measurement window.
Mean effective thermal conductivity · W/m·K
It measured about 46% above Diamond in Onyx and 50% above Diamond in Nylon, preserving the same topology ranking across both materials.
Onyx produced the higher mean conductivity for both geometries, consistent with its chopped carbon-fiber-filled matrix.
Across both Onyx configurations, three-run coefficients of variation stayed at or below 1.43%. Nylon kept the same topology ranking but showed greater spread—an important target for the next validation cycle.
| Material | Topology | Run 01 | Run 02 | Run 03 | Mean |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Onyx | Gyroid · GTC4 | 1.616 | 1.579 | 1.621 | 1.605 |
| Onyx | Diamond · DTC3 | 1.102 | 1.115 | 1.093 | 1.103 |
| Nylon | Gyroid · GTC4 | 0.953 | 0.950 | 1.215 | 1.039 |
| Nylon | Diamond · DTC3 | 0.660 | 0.657 | 0.764 | 0.694 |
These measurements characterize the printed samples and the experimental platform. Mechanical compression testing and FEA are still required before making a complete thermomechanical or battery-protection claim.
09 / What this unlocks
The immediate next step is to connect the thermal evidence to structural performance, then carry the best architecture into a battery-relevant demonstrator.
Research record
Research conducted with Tecnológico de Monterrey's School of Engineering and Sciences and POLYMATIQ, with Cecilia D. Treviño Quintanilla, Guillermo Sotelo Flores, and Benjamín A. Moreno Núñez. Research foundation credited to César Alberto Rosales Vigueras's 2024 master's thesis.
