scholarly journals Developing convective flow in a square channel partially filled with a high porosity metal foam and rotating in a parallel-mode

Author(s):  
Ahmed Alhusseny ◽  
Ali Turan ◽  
Adel Nasser
Author(s):  
Srivatsan Madhavan ◽  
Prashant Singh ◽  
Srinath Ekkad

High-porosity metal foams are known for providing high heat transfer rates, as they provide a significant increase in wetted surface area as well as highly tortuous flow paths resulting in enhanced mixing. Further, jet impingement offers high convective cooling, particularly at the jet footprint areas on the target surface due to flow stagnation. In this study, high-porosity thin metal foams were subjected to array jet impingement, for a special crossflow scheme. High porosity (92.65%), high pore density (40 pores per inch (ppi)), and thin foams (3 mm) have been used. In order to reduce the pumping power requirements imposed by full metal foam design, two striped metal foam configurations were also investigated. For that, the jets were arranged in 3 × 6 array (x/dj = 3.42, y/dj = 2), such that the crossflow is dominantly sideways. Steady-state heat transfer experiments have been conducted for varying jet-to-target plate distance z/dj = 0.75, 2, and 4 for Reynolds numbers ranging from 3000 to 12,000. The baseline case was jet impingement onto a smooth target surface. Enhancement in heat transfer due to impingement onto thin metal foams has been evaluated against the pumping power penalty. For the case of z/dj = 0.75 with the base surface fully covered with metal foam, an average heat transfer enhancement of 2.42 times was observed for a concomitant pressure drop penalty of 1.67 times over the flow range tested.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ninad Trifale ◽  
Eric Nauman ◽  
Kazuaki Yazawa

We present a study on the apparent thermal resistance of metal foams as a thermal interface in electronics cooling applications. Metal foams are considered beneficial for several applications due to its significantly large surface area for a given volume. Porous heat sinks made of aluminum foam have been well studied in the past. It is not only cost effective due to the unique production process but also appealing for the theoretical modeling study to determine the performance. Instead of allowing the refrigerant flow through the open cell porous medium, we instead consider the foam as a thermal conductive network for thermal interfaces. The porous structure of metal foams is moderately compliant providing a good contact and a lower thermal resistance. We consider foam filled with stagnant air. The major heat transport is through the metal struts connecting the two interfaces with high thermally conductive paths. We study the effect of both porosity and pore density on the observed thermal resistance. Lower porosity and lower pore density yield smaller bulk thermal resistance but also make the metal foam stiffer. To understand this tradeoff and find the optimum, we developed analytic models to predict intrinsic thermal resistance as well as the contact thermal resistance based on microdeformation at the contact surfaces. The variants of these geometries are also analyzed to achieve an optimum design corresponding to maximum compliance. Experiments are carried out in accordance with ASTM D5470 standard. A thermal resistance between the range 17 and 5 K cm2/W is observed for a 0.125 in. thick foam sample tested over a pressure range of 1–3 MPa. The results verify the calculation based on the model consisting the intrinsic thermal conductivity and the correlation of constriction resistance to the actual area of contact. The area of contact is evaluated analytically as a function of pore size (5–40 PPI), porosity (0.88–0.95), orientation of struts, and the cut plane location of idealized tetrakaidecahedron (TKDH) structure. The model is developed based on assumptions of elastic deformations and TKDH structures which are applicable in the high porosity range of 0.85–0.95. An optimum value of porosity for minimizing the overall interface thermal resistance was determined with the model and experimentally validated.


2006 ◽  
Vol 128 (11) ◽  
pp. 1194-1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric N. Schmierer ◽  
Arsalan Razani

Many engineering applications require thermal cycling of granular materials. Since these materials generally have poor effective thermal conductivity various techniques have been proposed to improve bed thermal transport. These include insertion of metal foam with the granular material residing in the interstitial space. The use of metal foam introduces a parasitic thermal capacitance, disrupts packing, and reduces the amount of active material. In order to optimize the combined high porosity metal foam-granular material matrix and study local thermal nonequilibrium, multiple energy equations are required. The interfacial conductance coefficients, specific interface area, and the effective thermal conductivities of the individual components, which are required for a multiple energy equation analysis, are functions of the foam geometry. An ideal three-dimensional geometric model of open-celled Duocell® foam is proposed. Computed tomography is used to acquire foam cell and ligament diameter distribution, ligament shape, and specific surface area for a range of foam parameters to address various shortcomings in the literature. These data are used to evaluate the geometric self-consistency of the proposed geometric model with respect to the intensive and extensive geometry parameters. Experimental thermal conductivity data for the same foam samples are acquired and are used to validate finite element analysis results of the proposed geometric model. A simple relation between density and thermal conductivity ratio is derived using the results. The foam samples tested exhibit a higher dependence on relative density and less dependence on interstitial fluid than data in the literature. The proposed metal foam geometric model is shown to be self-consistent with respect to both its geometric and thermal properties.


Author(s):  
Yuanpeng Yao ◽  
Huiying Wu ◽  
Zhenyu Liu

In this paper, a numerical model employing 3D foam structure represented by Weaire-Phelan foam cell is developed to study the steady heat conduction of high porosity open-cell metal foam/paraffin composite at the pore-scale level. Two conduction problems are considered in the cubic representative computation unit of the composite material: one with constant temperature difference between opposite sides of the cubic unit (that can be used to determine the effective thermal conductivity (ETC)) and the second with constant heat flux at the interface between metal foam and paraffin (that can be used to determine the interstitial conduction heat transfer coefficient (ICHTC)). The effects of foam pore structure parameters (pore size and porosity) on heat conduction are investigated for the above two problems. Results show that for the first conduction problem, the effect of foam structure on heat conduction (i.e. the ETC) is related to porosity rather than pore size. The essential reason is due to the thermal equilibrium state between metal foam and paraffin indicated by the negligible interstitial heat transfer. While for the second conduction problem with inherent thermal non-equilibrium effect, it shows that both porosity and pore size significantly influence the interstitial heat conduction (i.e. the ICHTC). Furthermore, the present ETC and ICHTC data are compared to the results in the published literature. It shows that our ETC data agree well with the reported experimental results, and are more accurate than the numerical predications based on body-centered-cubic foam cell in literature. And our ICHTC data are in qualitative agreement with the published numerical results, but the present results are based on a more realistic foam structure.


2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanpeng Yao ◽  
Huiying Wu ◽  
Zhenyu Liu

In this paper, a numerical model employing an approximately realistic three-dimensional (3D) foam structure represented by Weaire–Phelan foam cell is developed to study the steady-state heat conduction of high porosity open-cell metal foam/paraffin composite at the pore-scale level. The conduction problem is considered in a cubic representative computation unit of the composite material with a constant temperature difference between one opposite sides of the cubic unit (the other outer surfaces of the cubic unit are thermally insulated). The effective thermal conductivities (ETCs) of metal foam/paraffin composites are calculated with the developed pore-scale model considering small-scale details of heat conduction, which avoids using adjustable free parameters that are usually adopted in the previous analytical models. Then, the reason why the foam pore size has no evident effect on ETC as reported in the previous macroscopic experimental studies is explored at pore scale. Finally, the effect of air cavities existing within solid paraffin in foam pore region on conduction capacity of metal foam/paraffin composite is investigated. It is found that our ETC data agree well with the reported experimental results, and thus by direct numerical simulation (DNS), the ETC data of different metal foam/paraffin composites are provided for engineering applications. The essential reason why pore size has no evident effect on ETC is due to the negligible interstitial heat transfer between metal foam and paraffin under the present thermal boundary conditions usually used to determine the ETC. It also shows that overlarge volume fraction of air cavity significantly weakens the conduction capacity of paraffin, which however can be overcome by the adoption of high conductive metal foam due to enhancement of conduction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2085 (1) ◽  
pp. 012028
Author(s):  
Zhongli Li ◽  
Peng Hu

Abstract Open cell foam metal has the characteristics of high porosity and large specific surface area. And it has developed rapidly in the related research of heat exchanger. Aiming at the convective heat transfer process of open cell metal structure with high porosity, a two-dimensional stochastic distribution model is established. Numerical simulation is carried out using the single-relaxation-time dual-distribution-function lattice-Boltzmann-method (BGK-DDF-LBM). For the non-ideal solid particles with unequal diameter and incomplete circular structure, the flow field is analyzed by taking the porosity of 0.964 as an example, and the dimensionless permeability is calculated. When the porosity is constant, the Nusselt number of the porous section increases with the increases of Reynolds number in the range of 10 to 100, which shows heat transfer performance. In addition, the Nusselt number of the porous section increases with the increase of porosity in the range of porosity from 0.900 to 0.980.


Computation ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Riheb Mabrouk ◽  
Hassane Naji ◽  
Hacen Dhahri ◽  
Zouhir Younsi

In this investigation, a comprehensive numerical analysis of the flow involved in an open-ended straight channel fully filled with a porous metal foam saturated and a phase change material (paraffin) has been performed using a single relaxation time lattice Boltzmann method (SRT-LBM) at the representative elementary volume (REV) scale. The enthalpy-based approach with three density functions has been employed to cope with the governing equations under the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) condition. The in-house code has been validated through a comparison with a previous case in literature. The pore per inch density (10≤PPI≤60) and porosity (0.7≤ε≤0.9) effects of the metal structure were analyzed during melting/solidifying phenomena at two Reynolds numbers (Re = 200 and 400). The relevant findings are discussed for the LTNE intensity and the entropy generation rate (Ns). Through the simulations, the LTNE hypothesis turned out to be secure and valid. In addition, it is maximum for small PPI value (=10) whatever the parameters deemed. On the other hand, high porosity (=0.9) is advised to reduce the system’s irreversibility. However, at a moderate Re (=200), a small PPI (=10) would be appropriate to mitigate the system irreversibility during the charging case, while a large value (PPI = 60) might be advised for the discharging case. In this context, it can be stated that during the melting period, low porosity (=0.7) with low PPI (=10) improves thermal performance, reduces the system irreversibility and speeds up the melting rate, while for high porosity (=0.9), a moderate PPI (=30) should be used during the melting process to achieve an optimal system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prakash H. Jadhav ◽  
N. Gnanasekaran ◽  
D. Arumuga Perumal

Abstract The intent of the current research work is to emphasize the computational modeling of forced convection heat dissipation in the presence of high porosity and thermal conductivity metallic foam in a horizontal pipe for different regimes of the fluid flow for a range of Reynolds number. A two-dimensional physical domain is considered in which Darcy extended Forchheimer (DEF) model is adopted in the aluminum metallic foam to predict the features of fluid flow and local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) model is employed for the analysis of heat transfer in a horizontal pipe for different flow regimes. The numerical results are initially matched with experimental and analytical results for the purpose of validation. The average Nusselt number for fully filled foam is found to be higher compared to other filling rate of metallic foams and the clear pipe at the cost of pressure drop. As an important finding, it has been observed that the laminar and transition flow gives higher heat transfer enhancement ratio and thermal performance factor compared to turbulent flow. This work resembles numerous industrial applications such as solar collectors, heat exchangers, electronic cooling, and microporous heat exchangers. The novelty of the work is the selection of suitable flow and thermal models in order to clearly assimilate the flow and heat transfer in metallic foam. The presence of aluminum metal foam is highlighted for the augmentation of heat dissipation in terms of PPI and porosity. The parametric study proposed in this work surrogates the complexity and cost involved in developing an expensive experimental setup.


Author(s):  
Prashant Singh ◽  
Mingyang Zhang ◽  
Roop L. Mahajan

Abstract High porosity metal foam is a popular option for high performance heat exchangers as it offers significantly larger area per unit volume for heat dissipation as compared to other cooling techniques by convection. Further, metal foams provide highly tortuous flow paths resulting in thermal dispersion assisted by enhanced mixing. This paper reports an experimental study on jet array impingement onto high-porosity (ε∼0.95) thin aluminum foams. Our goal was to study the effect of foam thickness on convective transport and determine the optimum combination of foam thickness and pore density for maximum gain in thermal-hydraulic performance. To this end, three different pore-density foams (5, 10 and 20 pores per inch, ppi) were tested with three different jet array (5 × 5) impingement configurations (x/dj = 2,3 and 5), where “x” is the distance between any two adjacent jets and “dj” is the jet diameter. For the three pore densities selected, six values of foam thickness — 6.35 mm, 12.7 mm and 19.05 mm for the 20 ppi foam, 12.7 mm and 19.05 mm for the 10 ppi foam, and 12.7 mm for the 5 ppi foam — were deployed. The minimum thickness for each of the ppi value was dictated by the vendor’s manufacturing constraint. The thermal performance of these foams was compared against the orthogonal jet impingement onto a smooth heated surface, for which the distance between the jet exit plane and the heated surface was maintained at the foam thickness level. The data indicates that for a given pore density, thin foams have higher heat transfer rates compared to those for thicker foams, especially with jet configurations with larger open area ratios. The gain is due to the increased jet penetration and foam volume usage in thin foams compared to those for thick foams. Of the different pore density and foam thickness combinations, a 12.70 mm/20 ppi combination was found to have the highest thermal hydraulic performance.


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