Experimental study of thermal performance improvement in a cross‐flow heat exchanger by using copper foam

Abstract

In this study, copper foam was used as a porous medium in place of traditional aluminum fins. A comparison between the two heat exchangers-one with fins and the other with copper foam-was conducted under various conditions. The air inlet velocity ranged from 0.9 to 9.3 m/s, and the water inlet temperature ranged from 10°C to 18°C. Different water flow rates were tested. A comparison was made between the performance of copper foam and aluminum fins by calculating several parameters, including thermal resistance, heat exchanger effectiveness, Colburn factor, Nusselt number, friction factor, and area goodness factor (AG). The experimental results showed that at low air velocities, the heat transfer coefficient for both types of heat exchangers was almost equal. However, at high air velocities, the copper foam exhibited a higher heat transfer coefficient. The Colburn factor was higher for the heat exchanger with copper foam than in the conventional fins, where it was equal to 0.1959 for the copper foam and 0.1186 for the fins. On the other hand, the AG was higher in the case of fins than in the heat exchanger with copper foam.

Numerical Investigation of Fuel Pulsatile Flow Through Wavy Channel

“…The wave channel has been used widely in application of heat exchangers which are able to efficiently produce secondary flow and vortexes in ducts that greatly improve the heat transfer performance [52][53][54][55][56]. Multiple methods have been used to improve heat transfer through channels, and one of these methods is the use of porous media, as in [57][58][59][60]. These types of channels are often used in heat exchanger applications [61] It can be noticed that most of the previous studies focus on the type of channel used as well as the liquid used, which is water.…”