ARTICLE:

• HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT BY METALLIC FOAMS  download article

F. H. Li
Twente University, Enschede, the Netherlands

Th. H. van der Meer
Twente University, Enschede, the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

Forced convective heat transfer in a flat channel with metallic foam is investigated with a CFD model. The flow is laminar with the average velocity in the mean flow direction changing from 0.2 m/s to 2.0 m/s, and the Reynolds number based on the diameter of foam filaments (Re_f) varies between 3 and 46. The geometric models of the computational domains were built with the commercial CAD software Solidworks and the commercial CFD code CFX-5 was used to solve the problems. Numerical grids dependence was studied together with the Richardson extrapolation. The flow pattern and flow resistance, temperature distribution in metallic foams and fluid, and the heat transfer coefficients of metallic foams and channel walls were studied. The results have shown that the heat transferred from metallic foams to the fluid is about 10 times higher than that from the channel walls to the fluid. The local heat transfer coefficients reach the fully developed values in a few foam cells in the mean flow direction.

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