Electrification of vehicles can bring new manufacturing challenges, as the Dynamis PRC student team at the University of Milan discovered when transitioning its Formula SAE race car from internal combustion to battery power. The inverter that converts the DC power from the battery to AC to drive the motors must be kept within a specific temperature range; to maintain this range, the electric race car incorporates a fluid-cooled heat exchanger called a cold plate. The 3D printed device produced by M4P was designed by Puntozero using nTopology software. Regular and irregular lattice structures as well as biomimicry helped reduce the size and weight of the cold plate from an earlier machined design while increasing surface area, saving energy in directing the flow of coolant, and improving cooling performance.

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