MODELING OF A FOAMABLE MIXTURE FLOW THROUGH A HEAT EXCHANGER AND RELATION TO FOAM INHOMOGENEITIES

摘要

To understand transient cell size patterns in extruded foams,computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling was used to map temperature,velocity,and pressure in a foamable mixture traveling through a simplified heat exchanger geometry.A comparison was made between cases of clean and partially plugged heat exchanger device.The analysis revealed that the predicted inhomogeneities of temperature,pressure,and velocity do not correlate with the observed cell size pattern.However,residence time maps showed clear similitude with the observed pattern,in particular for geometries simulating partial plugging of the individual heat exchanger channels.