High Porosity Metal Foams Research Articles

Study on the Enhancement of Energy Storage Mechanism for Phase Change Materials by High Porosity Metal Foams: Numerical Simulation

Introduction: The findings of the study elucidated that as the porosity of copper foam diminished, the internal average temperature of the composite phase change material increased, concurrent with a reduction in the maximum average temperature differential and an enhancement in temperature homogeneity between the heating interface and the copper composite phase change material. Methods: Under the filling rate of this experiment, the heat transfer mechanism of copper composite phase change materials (CPCMs) was mainly heat conduction. Results: With the increase of porosity, the melting time of phase change materials shortened, and the change of natural convection ratio was more obvious. At the same melting time, the porosity decreased, and the pressure drop increased. Conclusion: When the porosity was 94 % and 96 %, the pressure drop was 1425.34 Pa/m and 1222.65 Pa/m, respectively, which was 37.01 % and 17.53 % higher than that when the porosity was 98 %.

Integrated Thermal Management System Concept With Combined Jet Plate, High Porosity Aluminum Foam, and Target Plate for Enhanced Heat Transfer

Abstract An experimental investigation was carried out on high porosity metal foams subjected to array jet impingement with an objective to develop enhanced heat transfer configurations. In this study, we propose an integrated thermal management system (TMS) aimed toward leveraging the conjugate heat transfer capabilities of target plate, metal foam, and the jet plate—all made from aluminum and assembled such that a proper contact between them can be established. Steady-state heat transfer experiments were carried out for 10 and 20 pores per inch (PPI) aluminum foams of 0.93 porosity. Both metal foams were 12.7-mm thick. The normalized jet-to-jet spacing was varied from 2 to 12 times the jet diameter, while the jet diameter was fixed. The ratio of the jet plate thickness and jet diameter (nozzle aspect ratio) was 6.35, which ensured proper development of jets inside the nozzles. Experiments were conducted over a wide range of Reynolds number (based on jet diameter) varied from 100 to 5000. The obtained convective heat transfer coefficient for different configuration was evaluated in context with pressure drop. The analysis of experimental results reveal that large open area ratio jets combined with high porosity metal foams provide highly efficient and high-performance cooling for the investigated range of Reynolds numbers.

Numerical investigations on the impact of metallic foam configurations on heat transfer in double tube heat exchanger: A parametric approach

In this research, a parametric analysis of partially filled high-porosity metallic foams within a double-tube heat exchanger integrated into a solar flat plate collector is conducted. The primary objective is to comprehensively analyze the thermal and fluid flow behavior in this complex system through numerical simulations employing ANSYS Fluent v2021, with water as the working fluid. The study encompasses three distinct metal foam materials—Nickel, Copper, and Aluminum—each investigated across six cases with varying porosities (ranging from 0.80 to 0.90) and pore densities (ranging from 10 to 30). The investigation also explores changes in the internal diameter of the foams adjacent to the conduit wall and the external diameter of the foam within the tube core, resulting in multiple test cases. Rigorous validation of simulation results against experimental data enhances the credibility of the findings. To simulate fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena within the metal foam heat exchanger’s intricate geometry, the research leverages the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations coupled with the k-epsilon model, treating the metal foam as a porous medium. The outcomes reveal intriguing insights, such as the close thermal performance match between 10 PPI aluminum foam and the more costly 10 PPI copper foam. The highest performance factor is observed for 30 PPI aluminum foam, highlighting its efficiency. However, the performance factor exhibits variations, with values of 2.03, 3.15, and 3.73 for 100 PPI, 20 PPI, and 30 PPI foams, respectively, and their corresponding porosities of 0.90, 0.85, and 0.80 in case 1, case 2, and case 3, all at a lower Reynolds number of 3,000. This performance factor decreases progressively with increasing fluid flow rates. Additionally, the research evaluates key parameters, including average wall temperature, average Nusselt number, and Colburn j factor, to identify the optimal performance characteristics within the investigated configurations. This study provides valuable insights into the potential for enhancing the efficiency of heat exchangers in solar flat plate collectors through the strategic utilization of high-porosity metallic foams.

Heat transfer model for moving packed-bed particle-to-sCO2 heat exchangers integrated with metal foams

Particle-to-supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) heat exchangers (HXs) play a vital role in coupling heat transfer fluid (HTF) from high-temperature thermal receivers to power cycle working fluids (WF). Heat transfer enhancement is essential for adopting particle-based moving packed-bed heat exchangers (MPBHXs) in next-generation thermal energy storage (TES) systems, as MPBHXs usually exhibit low particle bed-to-wall heat transfer coefficients. High-porosity metal foams have shown their effectiveness in heat transfer enhancement. This work presents a continuum heat transfer model to demonstrate the heat transfer enhancement in MPBHXs when the particle bed channel is filled with high porosity metal foams compared to open channel MPBHXs. The presence of metal foams increases the effective thermal conductivity in the particle channel and enhances the interstitial heat transfer coefficient between the moving particle bed and the stationary metal foams. The present model considers coupled two-dimensional (2D) heat transfer in the particle channel with metal foams and 1D heat transfer in the sCO2 channel and the dividing wall. The temperature profiles for the particle bed, metal foam, dividing wall, and sCO2 stream, as well as the local heat flux profiles between those, are studied in detail for various foam porosities, from which the particle bed-to-wall heat transfer coefficient, overall heat transfer coefficient, and total heat transfer rate for the MPBHX are determined. The effects of major MPBHX design and operating parameters on the particle bed-to-wall heat transfer coefficient and overall heat exchange capacity are thoroughly examined; thus, the MPBHX performance improvement with metal foams is quantified for each case. The present heat transfer model can provide valuable insights into the metal-foam MPBHX design and optimization, scale-up, and operating parameters selection.

Transient Thermal Performance of Phase-Change Material Infused in Cellular Materials Based on Different Unit Cell Topologies

Abstract Phase change material (PCM) employment in thermal management and energy storage applications is limited due to their inherently low thermal conductivity. Significant enhancement in the thermal performance of PCMs can be obtained when infused in porous media with high porosity and high solid-phase thermal conductivity. Earlier studies typically employ high porosity aluminum foams obtained via a conventional manufacturing process, commonly known as foaming. A typical representative unit cell of metal foams obtained via foaming process can be of tetrakaidecahedron shape. The conventional manufacturing process of high porosity metal foams offers limited flexibility over unit cell shape, porosity, and pore density. Metal additive manufacturing advancements have the potential to address this manufacturing limitation and provides freedom in the above design domain. To this end, we have explored four different unit cell topologies, viz., octet, tetrakaidecahedron, face-diagonal cube, and cube, for their role in enhancing the transient thermal performance when infused with PCMs. An enthalpy-porosity method has been employed to model the phase-change process for wide range of variables. It has been found that the presence of solid media results in significant enhancement in PCM's thermal performance, and the Octet-shaped unit cell outperformed the other unit cell topologies explored in this study.

Outlining the impact of discrete filling of metal foams on thermodynamic performance

The desire of this paper is to present the numerical analysis of thermodynamic performance of high porosity metal foams with discrete filling inside the horizontal pipe. The heater is embedded on the pipe’s circumference and is assigned with known heat input. To enhance heat transfer, aluminum metal foam of 10 PPI (pores per inch) with porosity 0.95 is filled into the pipe. In filling, two kinds of arrangements are made. In the first arrangement, the metal foam is filled adjacent to the inner wall of the pipe (Model (1–3)), and in the second arrangement, the metal foam is located at the center of the pipe (Model (4–6)). So, six different models are inspected for different fluid velocities (0.7–7 m/s) under turbulent flow conditions. Darcy Extended Forchheimer (DEF) is combined with local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) models for estimating the flow features and heat transfer via metal foams and initially validated with experimental outcomes. The application of the second law of thermodynamics via metal foams is the novelty of current investigation. In the study, the thermal performance is assessed in terms of heat transfer enhancement ratio and heat transfer performance ratio, and the thermodynamic performance is evaluated based on exergy and irreversibility analysis. In the analysis, the parameters like mean exergy based Nusselt number (Nue), heat transfer and flow frictional irreversibility are considered for the evaluation. The overall thermal performance and exergy transfer found higher in Model (1–3) than the Model (4–6) respectively. The flow and heat transfer irreversibility found less in Model (1–3) than the Model (4–6) respectively. The superior thermodynamic performance is obtained from the metal foam filled cases than from the clear pipe. In that, Model-2 suits the best configuration for designing the thermal system.

An improved latent heat thermal energy storage using two layers of metal foams

Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage (LHTES) systems are essential due to their remarkable ability to compactly store significant thermal energy. Their pivotal role extends to various energy applications, prominently including solar heaters and waste thermal energy recovery initiatives. Metal foams have the ability to improve heat transmission and thermal charging of energy storage units dramatically. However, the metal foam cannot store latent heat energy, so the goal is to improve heat transfer by using minimal foam mass. Here, the LHTES is made of several parallel channel enclosures with a square cross-section of 120 mm in height/width. There is a 21 °C temperature difference between the heated channel walls and PCM fusion temperature. In the current study, the influence of the configuration of two metal foam layers was addressed on melting time in LHTES. The idea is to use heavy foam (porosity 0.90) in places where there is low convection and light foams (porosity 0.975) in places with good convection heat transfer to enhance thermal charging and keep the storage weight low. Therefore, three configurations of splitting into half, an L shape division, and splitting diagonally for foam layers were examined. The influence of metal foam configurations on melting volume fraction, thermal energy storage, isotherms, and streamlines was examined. The geometrical configuration of foam layers could significantly influence the thermal charging time and energy storage profiles. The best layer configuration was a horizontal splitting of the enclosure with a light foam layer (high porosity metal foam) at the top. The well-configured foam layer could complete the charging process in 837 s, 32% faster than the same splitting but placing the light foam layer at the bottom.

Performance Evaluation Based on Exergy Analysis Through Partially Filled Metal Foams in Forced Convection

Abstract The intention of this paper is to present the numerical analysis of thermal performance and exergy transfer through high porosity metal foams filled partially in a horizontal pipe. The heater is embedded in the pipe's circumference and is assigned with known heat input. To enhance heat transfer, aluminum metal foam of pore density 10 with porosity 0.95 is inserted adjacent to the pipe's inner wall. To determine the optimal thickness of metal foam for enhancing its performance thermodynamically, metal foams with five different thicknesses (10, 20, 40, 60, and 80 mm) are examined in this research for a fluid velocity ranging from 0.7 to 7 m/s under forced convection heat transfer condition. The Darcy– Brinkman–Forchheimer and local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) models are used for forecasting the flow features and heat transfer through the metal foams, respectively. The numerical methodology implemented in this research is confirmed by comparing the present outcomes with the experimental outcomes accessible in the literature and found a fairly good agreement between them. The thermal performance is assessed in terms of heat transfer enhancement ratio and performance factor, and the thermodynamic performance is evaluated based on exergy analysis. In the exergy analysis, the parameters like mean exergy-based Nusselt number (Nue), merit function (MF), and nondimensional exergy destruction (I*) are considered for the evaluation. The result shows a better performance from partially filled metal foams than from completely filled metal foams.

Experimental investigation of thermal performance of single pass solar collector using high porosity metal foams

The previous literature showed that there have been many studies focusing on some specific aspects of single-pass solar air collectors, such as the effects of the number of passes, the shape of fins, and their effects on thermal performance. Also, the effect of thermal efficiency accompanied by the existence of these fins has been the interest of many studies. A few research types are dealing with using porous materials (Metal foam) to improve thermal performance. Therefore, an experimental apparatus was designed and fabricated to study the effect of Metal Foam (MF) on the performance of solar air collectors. The experiments were held in Iraq, Al Ramadi climate conditions. A comparison of three configurations of absorber plates of solar air heaters with and without MF is presented and evaluated. The results showed that by including MF fins in the absorber plate, the absorber plate's surface area was increased, increasing heat transmission compared to a flat plate (without MF). Moreover, utilizing MF at the tilted angle of 45° (MFθ=45o) increased turbulence intensity, which improved the mixing of cold and hot air. The MFθ=45o layout had the best thermal efficiency of the three employed configurations (94.8%), followed by the MFθ=0o configuration (62.6%) and the flat plate configuration (33.8%), all with the same mass flow rate. Finally, when using MF fins with a tilted angle of 45°, the air temperature differential is bigger compared to MF fins with a tilted angle of 0° or a flat plate collector.

Generalized correlation for effective thermal conductivity of high porosity architectured materials and metal foams

This paper presents a numerical study on the effective thermal conductivity (keff) of architectured materials typically realized through additive manufacturing. Four different unit cell topologies- Cube, Octet, Face-diagonal Cube, and Tetrakaidecahedron, were simulated for a range of porosity values, and both solid- and fluid-phase thermal conductivities. Numerically predicted keff values were validated against the in-house experiments carried out on single-cell thick 5 × 5 unit cell arrangement samples. These simulations led to a correlation for keff as a function of lattice porosity and thermal conductivities of solid- and fluid-phase materials. For the solid-to-fluid thermal conductivity ratio (ks/kf) greater than 300, the keff showed dependence on only the solid thermal conductivity for any given porosity and unit cell topology. The proposed correlation for the keff of architectured materials is applicable to all the four unit cell topologies with porosities > 0.8, and ks/kf ranging from 102 to 104. For these parameters, the correlation can also predict the keff of high-porosity metal foams obtained via foaming process with an accuracy of ±10%.

Inverse estimation of heat flux under forced convection conjugate heat transfer in a vertical channel fully filled with metal foam

In this work, for the first time, a heat flux at the boundary is estimated for a conjugate heat transfer under forced convection in the presence of high porosity metal foams. For the forward problem a vertical channel experimental set up reported in the literature is considered. The metal foam placed in the vertical channel is subjected to constant heat flux through aluminum plate and airflow of various velocities is passed through vertical channel for removal of heat from the high porosity metal foam placed in the vertical channel. Six different velocities are considered and the required temperature distribution of the aluminum plate is obtained by solving Darcy extended Forchheimer and Local Thermal non-equilibrium models for metal foams. The forward problem, created using computational fluid dynamics in ANSYS-FLUENT, is substituted with Neural Network for faster computation of the forward problem. The maximum errors between the computational fluid dynamics and Artificial Neural Network models for the heat flux values of 466.66, 666.66 and 1133.3 W/m 2 are found to be 0.086, 0.043, 0.092 respectively. The heat flux to the forward problem is treated as unknown and the same is estimated using an inverse method that couples Particle Swarm Optimization with Bayesian framework. The result of inverse estimation of exact temperature data shows that for a heat flux of 1266.64 W/m 2 the error is found to be 1.6e−4%. Similarly, for the noise added temperature data, the absolute % error in heat flux of 599.985, 733.315 and 1266.635 W/m 2 is 4.80e−2%, 2.20e−2%, 2.30e−2% respectively. • Inverse estimation of boundary heat flux using particle swarm optimization method. • Forward problem is a conjugate heat transfer problem in a vertical channel. • Darcy–Forchheimer, Local Thermal Non-equilibrium models for modelling porous medium. • Different Artificial Neural Network models to facilitate faster computations. • Particle Swarm Optimization combined Bayesian framework to quantify modeling error.

Parametric optimization of a cesaro fins employed latent heat storage system for melting performance enhancement

The large-scale use of sustainable energy necessitates the use of latent heat storage (LHS). This study aims to increase the melting performance of an LHS system by designing and optimizing the cesaro fins. To examine the melting behaviours of PCM (i.e., RT-82) in a finned LHS system, a 2-D melting heat transfer model is developed and numerically solved. As per literature, there is very literature including the NC (Natural Convection) and represents the coordination in fins, nanoparticles and metal foam. So, the impacts of natural convection, fin arrangement, nanoparticles and metal foam are explored for the Fourier number variations from 0.014 to 0.158 at a constant Stefan number of 0.20. The dynamic temperature distribution, as well as the natural convection and fin arrangement, are investigated to determine how phase change material melts over time by considering the non-thermal equilibrium between metal foam and PCM/nanoPCM. The findings illustrate that natural convection has a significant effect on melting behaviours in the LHTES (Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage) system, with a 26.8% increase in melting/charging rate as compared to the situation without NC. The LHTES system with improved fin structure (i.e., Type-3) and increased number of fins (i.e., Type-5) configurations have more uniform temperature distribution and a higher melting rate by increasing the heat transfer cooperation between NC and thermal conduction. Low thermal conductivity causes poor performance in PCM (Phase Change Material) energy storage devices. The melting/charging of PCM in an LHTES system is greatly improved in this study by employing a porous metal foam (i.e., copper metal foam) or nanoparticle (i.e., Cu, CuO and Al2O3). The impact of nanoparticle volume fraction and metal foam porosity on the LHTES system's melting/charging performance is also investigated using the enthalpy-porosity technique. According to the results, PCM's melting/charging time is lowered by 63.4% when nanoparticles are mixed in and incorporated with metal foam for the Fourier number varies from 0.014 to 0.158 at a constant Stefan number of 0.20. PCM melting/charging time decreased when the metal foam porosity decreased or increased in the volume fraction of nanoparticles. High porosity metal foams with low volume fractions of nanoparticles can increase melting performance since it assures minimum PCM volume and increases natural convection.

Heat transfer optimization using genetic algorithm and artificial neural network in a heat exchanger with partially filled different high porosity metal foam

The metal foam is well known for its high surface area to volume ratio and thus used to transfer heat from the exhaust gas leaving the heat exchanger system. The present work deals with the numerical simulations of a heat exchanger partially filled with three different metal foams made up of Aluminum (Al), Copper (Cu) and Nickel (Ni) having two pore densities namely 20 PPI and 40 PPI, respectively. The hot gas is made to flow through the 8 mm channel in which metal foams are inserted and different heights of foams such as 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm and 8 mm are considered for the analysis. The purpose of this study is to optimize thermal performance by increasing heat transfer and decreasing pressure drop which is calculated from the simulations using a commercial software ANSYS FLUENT. In order to achieve this, a optimization technique called Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) is coded in MATLAB by making use of artificial neural network (ANN tool) as an interpolation tool to generate more data based on the already existing data. Finally, Pareto front is obtained for the optimized functional values of heat transfer and drop in pressure after running the code for NSGA-II. From the numerical simulations it is observed that there is 5.68 times enhancement in heat transfer rate when copper metal foam is used for higher inlet velocities, when compared with non-porous channel. From the optimization study, it is found that 50% filled metal foam porous channel is showing enhanced heat transfer rate with decreased pressure drop as depicted in the pareto optimal plot for copper and aluminium.

Thermodynamic analysis of entropy generation in a horizontal pipe filled with high porosity metal foams

In the field of thermal management of electronic equipment , examining entropy generation properties is extremely useful. The entropy production experiments have been expanded to porous media using high porosity metal foams. The entropy production/generation for forced convection heat transfer in a tube is quantified via a numerical research. In the field of air stream direction, the horizontal pipe is entirely filled with nickel metal foam of 0.6 m length. For the isotropic porous metal foam zone, the Darcy-extended Forchheimer (DEF) flow is used to capture the dynamics of flow and local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model is used for analyzing the heat transport phenomenon, while the k-ɛ turbulent model is used for the non-foam porous region of the tube. The effect of fully filled nickel metallic foam with different pore densities of 10, 20, and 30 metal foam with a porosity of 0.85 is being investigated. The computational solutions presented here are supported by experimental results published in the literature. The outlet exergy of the system rises with higher flow rates and falls with higher metal foam pore densities. The results of entropy generation due to thermal and fluid friction and Bejan number conceptions are also shown and discussed.

Performance score based multi-objective optimization for thermal design of partially filled high porosity metal foam pipes under forced convection

Optimization study in flow through metal foams for heat exchanging applications is very much essential as it involves variety of fluid flow and structural properties. Moreover, the identification of best combinations of structural parameters of metal foams for simultaneous improvement of heat transfer and pressure drop is a pressing situation. In this work, six different metal foam configurations are considered for the enhancement of heat transfer in a circular conduit. The foam is aluminum with PPI varying from 10 to 45 and almost the same porosity (0.90-0.95). The aluminum foams are chosen from the available literature and they are partially filled in the conduit to reduce the pressure drop. For a constant heat flux condition, the goal is to find out the efficient metal foam and configurations when air is considered as a working fluid. A special attention is paid to the preference between pressure drop and heat transfer enhancements. That is why TOPSIS optimization techniques with five different criteria (contains the combination of the weightage/priority of heat transfer and pressure drop) is used. Based on the numerical results of heat and fluid flow in conduit, it is found that when an equal importance is given to both heat transfer and friction effect, 30 PPI aluminum foam with 80% filling on the inner lateral of the pipe provides the best score as 0.8197. The best configuration and PPI for different preferences between friction and heat transfer enhancements is discussed in details. The Reynolds number varies from 4500 to 16500.

Optimum design of heat exchanging device for efficient heat absorption using high porosity metal foams

The present research provides a numerical assessment of waste heat recovery system which contains high porosity metal foam that absorbs heat from the hot flue gases. Top wall of the heat exchanging device is designed as a sinusoidal corrugated/wavy wall. Three different wavelengths (Lw) of 39, 24.375 and 17.728 mm and three different wave amplitudes (a) of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mm along with various heights of metallic foam of 0.25H, 0.5H and 0.75H are considered. Two different pore density of 20 and 40 with constant porosity of 0.937 are accomplished for the numerical investigation over wide range of fluid velocities. Local thermal equilibrium (LTE) and Darcy extended Forchheimer (DEF) models are employed at the metallic foam region; k-ε turbulence model is accomplished at free flow region of the channel. The heat dissipation rate at the cold wall increases significantly to a maximum height of 0.5H and increases with increasing wave amplitudes of the channel at the expense of pressure drop. On account of smaller wavelength and higher wave amplitude, the heat absorption rate is found to be 26.25% - 32% more than the straight channel with 25% filling rate of metallic foams in the range of fluid velocity considered.

Performance evaluation of partially filled high porosity metal foam configurations in a pipe

• Numerical simulation of partially filled metal foams for heat transfer augmentation is studied. • Darcy Forchheimer and Local Thermal Non-Equilibrium models for numerical modeling. • Six different strategies for maximum heat transfer and minimum pressure drop. • 10 to 45 pores per inch and 0.88 and 0.95 porosity are considered. • 30 pores per inch with porosity of 0.92 provides the best performance factor. In this contemporary research, a parametric analysis of partially filled high porosity metallic foams in a horizontal conduit is performed to augment heat transfer with reasonable pressure drop. The investigation includes six different models filled partly with aluminium foam by varying internal diameter of foams from the wall side and external diameter of foam from the core of the tube. The pore density of the foam ranges from 10 to 45 PPI and their porosity varies from 0.90 to 0.95. Flow dynamics are captured using Darcy Extended Forchheimer model for the porous filled region and two-equation turbulence k-ω model employed in clear region of the fluid. The local thermal non-equilibrium assumption is incorporated in porous filled region of the conduit to compute the heat transport characteristics. The results showed that the thermal performance factor of 10 PPI aluminium foam performs close to the 10 PPI expensive copper foam. The performance factor is found to be higher for 30 PPI aluminium foam amongst the PPI’s of the foam considered. However, the performance factor is found to be 2.93, 2.22 and 1.73 for 30PPI, 45 PPI and 20PPI with their porosities of 0.92, 0.90 and 0.90, respectively for the model 1, model 2 and model 3 at lower Reynolds number of 4500 and then it decreases progressively with increasing flow rates of the fluid. The results of average wall temperature, average Nusselt number and Colburn j factor are also evaluated to obtain best possible performance.

Experimental Investigation of Buoyancy-Induced Convection in High-Porosity Open-Cell Aluminum Metal Foams Under Different Orientations

Abstract This investigation deals with buoyancy-induced convection of air in an open-cell aluminum foam under different orientations. Metal foam samples with a porosity of 93% and pore densities of 2, 4, 8, and 16 pores per cm (PPC) were used. The average heat transfer coefficient was determined for several values of the angle of inclination of the base plate, ranging from the vertical to the horizontal, with the foam facing upwards as well as downwards. The heat transfer coefficient was found to depend on the pore density, the thickness of the foam, the orientation of the base plate, and the difference in temperature between the base plate and the ambient. In all cases, the average heat transfer coefficient was found to be higher than that of the base plate without the foam. For a given angle of inclination and foam thickness, the thermal performance of samples with lower pore density was found to be superior. Two empirical correlations for predicting the effective Nusselt number have been proposed, one for the cases where the foam faces upwards and the other for cases where the foam faces downwards, relating the Nusselt number to Rayleigh number, Darcy number, the ratio of the thickness of the foam to the length of the square base plate and the angle of inclination from the vertical in the range of −90 deg (foam facing down) to +90 deg (foam facing up). The correlation predictions were found to match with experimentally determined Nusselt numbers within ±5% when the Rayleigh number ranged from 2500 to 6500.

Forced convection in finned metal foams: The effects of porosity and effective thermal conductivity

Metal foams are promising candidates for enhancing the thermal performance of heat exchangers due to their unique features such as high surface-area-to-volume ratio and stochastic orientation. However, limited heat dissipation in high porosity metal foams is found to be a significant constraint on the heat transfer enhancement. To overcome this issue, metal foam structures with fins were proposed. On the other hand, the enhancement of heat transfer obtained by the addition of fins is connected to the porosity and effective thermal conductivity of metal foams. This relationship needs to be considered in the design of the structures with finned metal foams properly. This study, accordingly, investigates the effects of porosity and effective thermal conductivity on flow and heat transfer in a channel with finned metal foams. First, a numerical model was established and validated with the experimental data in the literature. Next, the flow and heat transfer characteristics of metal foams with different porosities and effective thermal conductivities were investigated under different fin configurations. The numerical results show that the addition of fins does not yield a considerable increase in the friction factor, and heat transfer shows a considerable increase up to the addition of a certain number of fins. When the fin number is further increased, the enhancement in heat transfer becomes relatively limited for all metal foams considered in this study. The effective fin number depends on the porosity and effective thermal conductivity. The results also show that the contribution of fins to the heat transfer in the parameter range considered in the study varies between 40-115% and 70–150% at the lowest and highest velocities, respectively.

Impact of using a PCM-metal foam composite on charging/discharging process of bundled-tube LHTES units

Due to its potentials to overcome the problems of instability and intermittency of energy through using phase change material (PCM), latent heat energy storage has been used in a variety of practical applications. However, most of the phase change materials possess poor thermal conductivity resulting in a modest charging/discharging rate. To overcome this deficit, high porosity metal foam is used to improve the overall thermal conductivity of the phase change materials leading to enhancing the heat transported, and hence, promoting the PCM melting and solidification. This proposal has been utilised to improve the performance of a thermal energy storage system formed of staggered bundled tubes, which are filled with paraffin wax as a PCM compounded to open-cell copper foam. The PCM unit is charged/discharged using a relatively hot/cold water stream flowing across the tube-bundle units. The feasibility of such a configuration is examined numerically through simulating the proposed PCM-metal foam composite units and their surrounding shell computationally using the ANSYS Fluent CFD commercial code. The impact of some design and operating parameters on the charging/discharging performance has been tested including the water flow strength as well as the tube-bundle configuration. The currently proposed design of LHTES system has been found not only easy to configure, but practically efficient as well, where the overall performance achieved is remarkably outstanding, i.e. OP=(104~105). Besides, the charging/discharging rate can be remarkably boosted through a wise selection of design parameters.