Metal foam regenerators; heat transfer and storage in porous metals

Abstract

Open pore metal foams may be of interest as regenerators because of their large specific surface area and their high porosity. In this experiment, three aluminum foam samples (pore size 2-2.36 mm and around 65% porosity) were manufactured by the replication process. The volumetric heat transfer coefficient and number of transfer units (NTU) of the foams and a packed bed of steel ball bearings (2 mm diameter) were determined using a single-blow transient technique over the range 500 , Re m , 1400. The NTU values of the foams and ball bearings both reduced with increasing Reynolds number (flow velocity). The pressure drop across the matrices increased with the velocity, though the values for the metal foams were much lower than that of the ball bearings, indicating that they may have potential for this type of application.

Potentiality of new miniature-channels Stirling regenerator

“…In order to investigate the effect of those materials on engine performance, the maximum heater temperature of the engine was Segmentation of the regenerator adds thermal contact resistance to each consecutive sheets so that the axial conduction loss is minimized due the interruption of the solid continuity. Similar behaviour was observed by authors [18,29] where they conducted an experimental study to find the optimum number of segmentations for parallel wire regenerator. The theoretical investigation of segmentation of a parallel geometry regenerator was not reported in literature due to the lack of defining thermal contact characteristics that resembles the real cutting properties of the sheets such as surface roughness (height and slope), hardness of the material, contact pressure and the gap conductance.…”

Open Cell Metal Foam as Extended Coolant Surface – Fuel Cell Application

“…The main features of metal foams, which attracted researchers' attention, are high surface area density, low weight and ability to mix fluids. These issues have accredited metal foam a potential choice in a variety of fluid and thermal engineering applications and researches . Associated to these features, numerical or experimental research approaches need the knowledge of metal foam design and simulation.…”

Influence of processing on surface morphology and specific surface area for the nickel foam made by electrodeposition

“…Porous metals have excellent properties and broad applications, and they can be prepared by a variety of methods (Ashby et al , 2000; August et al , 2016; Banhart, 2001; Barari et al , 2013; Liu and Chen, 2014; Liu and Liang, 2001; Rosa, 2008; Sun et al , 2016). The technique of electrodeposition on polymer foam is already a mature method to make nickel foam with 3D network structure, and the resultant product can be used for electrode substrates, catalyst carriers, heat exchangers, sound absorbing materials and electromagnetic shielding materials (Atsushi et al , 1998; Carpenter et al , 2004; Duan et al , 2008; Lee and Lewandowski, 2005; Yang et al , 2016).…”