DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH CONDUCTIVITY GRAPHITE FOAMS FOR THERMAL MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS

摘要

Graphitic carbon foams are excellent candidate materials for thermal management applications due to their extraordinarily high ligament conductivity and large surface area. Graphite foams have reported ligament conductivities greater than 1800 W/m·K and bulk values up to 245 W/m·K. But before these foams can be fully utilized, numerous issues need to be studied and resolved. Improvements need to be made regarding the overall foam strength; flaking and pressure drop in forced convection systems; bonding; environmental durability; as well as cost, product size, quality and production capacity. A team comprised of the Ohio Aerospace Institute, GrafTech International Holdings, Inc., Ohio University, and TMMT, Inc. is attending to the above needs by conducting cooperative research to resolve some of the issues mentioned. The categories of research include the development of new/modified manufacturing procedures for optimizing the morphology of the graphite foam while increasing the quality and quantity; the study of various coatings for increased durability and functionality; the investigation of joining and integration technologies to allow for optimal system integration regarding strength and thermal conductivity; as well as extensive modeling addressing mechanical, thermal and fluid flow simulations/predictions from the material to system levels (multi-scale modeling). This paper offers additional project details as well as provides some preliminary results.