Abstract
In this paper, a series of experimental data about the role of the metal foam thickness on the total air flow pressure drop is presented. The tested metallic foams are based on aluminum and nickel-chromium and they are characterized by a considerable value of porosity (>0.92) and by a number of pores per linear inches (PPI) close to 10. The measures were conducted in a range of air velocity values typical for HVAC fan-coils. Under these conditions, the flow regime into the pores is highly turbulent. It was demonstrated that below a threshold value of the ratio between the thickness of the porous medium (H) and the characteristic dimension of the pores (d), the dispersion of the pressure drop values from a sample to another one can be very high. This behavior can limit the industrial use of these materials. In addition, the results presented in this paper confirm that the pressure drop data obtained under highly turbulent conditions can be conveniently used in order to determine the inertia coefficient, C, of the metal foam.
Highlights
During the last decade, many experimental and theoretical investigations have been carried out regarding the analysis of the thermal performances of open cell metal foams
The experimental results confirmed that no significant differences are evidenced by changing either the order of the samples or the faces exposed at the air flow
An experimental campaign dealing with the characterization of aluminum and nickel chrome open-cell metal foams with a fixed pores per linear inches (PPI) value (10) and high porosity (>92%) was described
Summary
Many experimental and theoretical investigations have been carried out regarding the analysis of the thermal performances of open cell metal foams. Presented a critical review of experiments and correlations for determination of the pressure drop in open cell metal foams. They highlighted how the available data in terms of pressure drops in the open literature are widely dispersed. Following Kumar and Topin [1], this data dispersion is due to: (i) Non-consistent method of measuring the pressure drop [1]; (ii) wrong data extraction and treatment methods [1]; and (iii) non-uniform definition of the morphological characteristics of the metal foams [3].
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