Thermal Behavior of Aluminum Alloy Metal Foam Heat Sinks: A Computational and Experimental Approach

Abstract

Metal foams are structures of a cellular nature that contain a high percentage of porosity that can be produced in either a closed or open cell forms. The use of metal foams in engineering applications has increased significantly over the last decade due to their enhanced mechanical and thermal properties. An innovative approach for three-dimensional (3D) detailed finite element modeling of open cell metal foam has been taken to capture the versatile nature of metal foams’ geometry and predicting its thermal performance. The interior complex geometry of metal foams has limited studies to create computational model via common approaches. Therefore, not much computational work has been done in open cell metal foam applications. To overcome this difficulty, computed tomography (CT) scan has been used to extract the 3D structure surface model with extreme precision. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software has been used for “stitching” and “healing” of the CT scan model before importing it to a finite element domain. The 3D computational model is used in a heat sink application and is calibrated against experimental results for the temperature distribution of one case. The validated and calibrated model is then used for simulating different metal foam heat sink cases to assess the thermal and mechanical behavior under different conditions.