SIMULATION AND VALIDATION OF METAL-FOAM COOLING DESIGN

The open-cell metal foams have an internal structure is a web of connected ligaments. Foams are made from pure or alloys of aluminum, nickel, steel, magnesium, titanium and copper. In addition to being light weight, the foams exhibit excellent stiffness-to-weight ratios. Some foams can be resilient materials in harsh environments and have high impact resistance. The foams have high conductivities and large surface area per unit volume. All of these attributes make metal foam an attractive core for heat exchange. For example, cooling of power electronics and for thermal management of ground vehicles can employ metal-foam designs. Numerical simulation of convection heat transfer due to airflow inside commercial aluminum foam is conducted in a commercial numerical package. For validation, actual air temperatures were locally measured inside heated commercial aluminum foam, and cooled by forced air flow using a specially-developed technique. Good agreement between the modeling and experimental results is obtained.