Flow and thermal performance of sandwich panels with plate fins or/and pyramidal lattice

Abstract

We propose a new sandwich panel by introducing the multifunctional pyramidal lattice into a plate fin sandwich panel. Forced convective heat transfer in this new structure is numerically investigated based on model validation. The flow and heat transfer characteristics of this new sandwich panel and those of the bare pyramidal lattice and the plate fin sandwich panels are compared. Results reveal that the insertion of the pyramidal lattice modifies the fluid flow in the plate fin sandwich panel. Compared to the bare pyramidal lattice sandwich panel, flow acceleration is induced by the formation of the flow boundary layers on the fin surfaces. Under certain Reynolds number, the introduction of the pyramidal lattice significantly enhances the overall Nusselt number of the plate fin sandwich panel by up to 150%, which is even higher than the sum of the overall Nusselt numbers for the bare plate fin and pyramidal lattice sandwich panels. For a given pumping power, the new structure also provides better heat dissipation performance than the plate fin and the pyramidal lattice sandwich panels. The mechanisms underlying the enhanced overall heat transfer are explored and presented.