Study on Characteristics of Heat Transfer and Flow Resistance in Random Porous Foam Metal

¹ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Refrigeration Technology, Tianjin University of Commerce, 300134, Tianjin Poland
² International Centre in Fundamental and Engineering Thermophysics, Tianjin University of Commerce, 300134, Tianjin, Poland
³ LMT/ENS-Cachan/CNRS/Université Paris Saclay, 61 Avenue du Président Wilson, 94235, Cachan, France

^* Corresponding author: lbtjcu@tjcu.edu.cn

Abstract

Porous foam metal has great application prospects in the field of compact heat exchangers. The characteristics of heat transfer and resistance for foam metal with random structure and different porosities (30%, 50%, 70% and 90%) were studied by finite element method in this study. The generated foam structures can be considered as homogeneous model and has better heat exchange capacity at higher inlet flow rate, and the boundary layer can develop well along the flow direction. The open–cell foammetal structure has a uniform heat transfer perpendicular to the flow direction. The bottom plate temperature of the low–porosity structure is more uniform at low flow rates. The intermediate porosities (50% and 70%) at high flow rates has a higher uniformity. As the porosity decreases, the internal pressure increases significantly and the pressure loss also becomes significantly larger. The corresponding optimal porosity is 57%, 66% and 76% at inlet flow rates of 0.001 m/s, 0.01 m/s and 0.1 m/s, respectively.