Numerical study of heat transfer and load-bearing performances of corrugated sandwich structure with open-cell metal foam

Abstract

Critical engineering applications require lightweight components that can effectively dissipate heat and provide sufficient load-bearing capacity. Examples of such applications include the jet blast deflector (JBD) on an aircraft carrier and engine combustion chambers in supersonic vehicles. While lightweight corrugated sandwich structures (CSSs) exhibit excellent load-bearing capacity, their heat transfer capacity falls short. To overcome this limitation, a strategy of filling the CSS with an open-cell metal foam (MF) is proposed to create a sandwich structure with ultralight load bearing and heat transfer capabilities. Numerical simulations were conducted to study the heat transfer and load-bearing performance of this new structure. The findings indicate that the use of a MF significantly improves the heat transfer capabilities of the CSS. Compared to the CSS, the Nusselt number of MF and CSS-foam composite at a Reynolds number of 240 were enhanced by 51.3% and 102.3%, respectively. The overall thermal performance of CSS-foam composites was optimized under the same pumping power constraints. In turbulent conditions, the overall thermal performance of CSS-foam composites was 5.9% to 55.4% higher than that of CSS in turbulent conditions. Furthermore, the simulations showed that when the CSS was subjected to static and quasi-static compression, the maximum von Mises stress occurred at the connection between the panel and the web.