Thermal Performance Analysis of Biporous Metal Foam Heat Sink

Abstract

The present study presents a concept of biporous metal foam heat sink applicable to electronic cooling. This heat sink has two metal foam layers arranged in parallel along the primary flow direction, with different metal foam thickness, porosity, and pore density for each layer. The forced convective heat transfer in biporous metal foam heat sink is numerically investigated by employing the Forchheimer–Brinkman extended Darcy momentum equation and local thermal nonequilibrium energy equation. The effects of geometrical and morphological parameters on thermal and hydraulic performance are discussed in detail, and the heat transfer enhancement mechanism of biporous metal foam is analyzed. The thermal performance of biporous metal foam heat sink is compared with that of uniform metal foam heat sink. The results show that the thermal resistance of the biporous metal foam heat sink decreases with decrease of top layer metal foam porosity at a fixed bottom metal foam porosity of 0.9. It is seen that the biporous metal foam heat sink can outperform the uniform metal foam heat sink with a proper selection of foam geometrical and morphological parameters, which is attributed to the presence of high velocity gradient at the boundary layer that can enhance the convective heat transfer. The best observed thermal performance of biporous metal foam heat sink is achieved by employing 30 pores per inch (PPI) metal foam at the bottom layer, with a fixed 50 PPI metal foam at the top layer for the porosities of both layers equal to 0.9, and the optimal thickness of the bottom foam layer is about 1 mm.