Numerical Simulation of Fluid Flow Characteristics and Heat Transfer Performance in Graphene Foam Composite

Abstract

Graphene foam composite is a promising candidate for advanced thermal management applications due to its excellent mechanical strength, high thermal conductivity, ultra-high porosity and huge specific surface area. In this study, a three-dimensional physical model was developed in accordance with the dodecahedral structure of graphene foam composite. A comprehensive numerical simulation was carried out to investigate the fluid flow and convective heat transfer in open-cell graphene foam composite by using ANSYS Fluent 2021 R1 commercial software. Research results show that, as porosity increases, the pressure gradient for graphene foam composite with circular and triangular cross-section struts is reduced by 65% and by 77%, respectively. At a given porosity of 0.904, when the inlet velocity increases from 1 m/s to 5 m/s, the pressure gradient is increased by 11.3 times and 13.8 times, and the convective heat transfer coefficient is increased by 54.5% and 43% for graphene foam composite with circular and triangular cross-section struts, respectively. Due to the irregularity of the skeleton distribution, the pressure drop in Y direction is the highest among the three directions, which is 8.7% and 17.4% higher than that in the Z and X directions at the inlet velocity of 5 m/s, respectively. The convective heat transfer coefficient in the Y direction is significantly lower than that along the X and Z directions. Furthermore, triangular cross-section struts induce a greater pressure drop but offer less effective heat transfer compared to circular struts. The research findings may provide critical insights into the design and optimization of graphene foam composites, and promote their potential for efficient thermal management and gas/liquid purification in engineering applications.