Cylinder-Pack Modeling of Open-Cell Metal Foam for Flow and Heat Transfer

摘要

Because of its morphology, accessible huge surface, and high porosity, open-cell metal foam has been investigated for flow and heat transfer applications. Capturing the actual knotted internal structure of the foam is rather expensive and time-consuming. Some researchers have relied on geometrical idealization of the actual structure in order to save on computational time and cost. However, some of these idealizations are ad hoc and often do not necessarily exhibit intimate relationship to the actual foam, especially in terms of key properties that control flow and heat transfer in the foam. This study investigates certain staggered arrangement of thin vertical cylinders that can provide the same transport effects as a given foam with known morphology. The average cell diameter, surface area density, and porosity are used to describe the foam. The transverse pitch of the cylinders is chosen such that the surface area density of the foam and that of the cylinders is equal. The diagonal pitch is determined based on the staggering arrangement of the cylinders, while the diameter of a typical cylinder is calculated from the porosity of the foam. By founding a robust, yet minimal, technique for representing the complex morphology of the foam, substantial savings in computational time and effort will be realized.