We’re excited to introduce ColdStream Expand, the latest and most powerful update to the ColdStream platform—launched on April 1st. This release marks a major leap forward in performance, automation, and design flexibility. From smarter material selection to seamless third-party integrations, new manufacturing capabilities, and groundbreaking design automation, ColdStream Expand is built to supercharge your engineering workflow.
Read on to discover the standout features and innovations shaping the future of generative thermal design.
25 New Standard Designs, Including Advanced TPMS Structures
We’ve massively expanded ColdStream’s design library with 25 new standard templates, making it the most comprehensive collection available for template-based thermal design generation. Among the highlights are 15 new TPMS (Triply Periodic Minimal Surface) structures, ideal for additive manufacturing. These geometries are known for their excellent surface-area-to-volume ratios, offering exceptional thermal performance with minimal material usage.
This update reinforces ColdStream’s position as the go-to solution for cutting-edge thermal design—whether you’re starting from scratch or accelerating with a ready-made template.
Automated Serpentine Channel Generation
Designing efficient serpentine flow paths just got a whole lot faster. With the latest ColdStream Expand update, you can now automatically generate complex serpentine (S-shaped) channels—no manual modeling or time-consuming calculations required.
ColdStream leverages its powerful generative engine to explore hundreds of design variants in a matter of minutes to hours, depending on the selected calculation method. This drastically shortens iteration cycles, enabling engineers to zero in on optimal flow paths for thermal performance, pressure drop, or manufacturability, all with minimal effort. This automation marks a major leap in how fast and flexibly you can design intricate cooling channels.
Expanding Manufacturability: Skiving and Roll Bonding Now Supported
ColdStream now supports two advanced manufacturing techniques, skiving and roll bonding, unlocking new possibilities for high-performance thermal designs.
- Skiving allows for the creation of ultra-thin, densely packed metal fins directly from a solid block, dramatically increasing surface area and enhancing heat dissipation, ideal for compact, high-efficiency cooling solutions.
- Roll Bonding enables the formation of intricate internal channels by bonding multiple metal layers under pressure. It’s especially well-suited for applications like battery thermal management, where space and performance are critical.
These additions reflect our commitment to bridging cutting-edge design with real-world manufacturability, empowering users to optimize for both performance and production from the start.
Smarter Material Selection & New Technology Integration Partner Program
The latest ColdStream Expand release introduces a smarter, more connected approach to material selection. Our upgraded material library makes it easier than ever for engineers to identify and apply the most suitable materials for their designs. Even better, material suppliers can now upload their data directly into the platform, enriching the available database and eliminating the need for manual entries or time-consuming online searches.
This not only accelerates the design process but also ensures accuracy and consistency across simulations. It’s all part of our new Technology Integration Partner Program, which invites industry-leading material and technology providers to plug into ColdStream, shaping a more integrated and efficient thermal design ecosystem.
Seamless Integrations with nTop and OpenFOAM
We’re expanding ColdStream’s ecosystem with two powerful new integrations that unlock advanced workflows for thermal engineers:
- nTop Integration: You can now import
.implicitfiles from nTop directly into ColdStream, using them as a foundation for generative thermal optimization. This bridges the gap between geometry creation and high-fidelity thermal analysis—capabilities previously out of reach within the nTop environment alone. - OpenFOAM Integration: ColdStream now auto-generates all required input files for OpenFOAM, allowing you to run simulations with
chtMultiRegionSimpleFOAMeffortlessly. No more manual file setup—just streamlined, accurate thermal simulations with a fraction of the effort.
These integrations push the boundaries of design and simulation interoperability, empowering engineers to move faster from concept to validated thermal performance.
Introducing pyColdStream
We’re excited to launch a powerful new way to interact with ColdStream: our dedicated Python package. Designed with engineers and developers in mind, this package wraps our REST API into an intuitive, high-level interface, making it easier than ever to automate your workflows. From creating and submitting cases to downloading results, you can now do it all with just a few lines of code. Explore the package on our Github page and start accelerating your thermal design process today.
Enhanced User Experience, Data Transparency & Faster Design Generation
ColdStream Expand delivers a smoother, smarter, and faster design experience. Each iteration now includes hundreds of intermediate data points, offering far greater transparency and enabling deeper insight into how your design evolves over time—compared to just 5–10 points in previous versions. A newly added real-time evolution graph visualizes your progress toward design goals, giving you immediate, intuitive feedback throughout the optimization process.
Behind the scenes, we’ve also significantly upgraded our core algorithms, resulting in a speed increase of up to 30% for design generation cases. This means faster iterations, reduced time to solution, and an even more efficient workflow.
Ready to Expand Your Possibilities?
ColdStream Expand represents a major step forward in our mission to push the boundaries of thermal design—combining speed, usability, and real-world manufacturing insight in one seamless platform. Whether you’re designing for additive, automating simulation workflows, or integrating with your favorite tools, this release empowers you to go further, faster.
