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Greek Symbols
e = Porosity
spheres. Under the assumption of local thermal equilibrium (Carbonell and Whitaker, 1984), they derived a set of closure equations
for the spatial deviation component of the volume-averaged temperature field in the two constitutive phases. These closure equations were solved analytically and numerically to obtain the effective thermal conductivity. Their numerical results correlated well
with the experimental data for a touching parameter, cla = 0.02
(cla is the ratio of the touching length scale to the length scale of
the particle size). Based on a similar two-dimensional study,
Sahroui and Kaviany (1993) found a value of cla = 0.002 to be
more appropriate. Hsu et al. (1995) demonstrated that a onedimensional conduction model based on in-line touching cubes
(cla = 0.13) was sufficient. It showed good agreement with the
experimental data of a packed sphere bed.
Hsu et al. (1994) based their study on the earlier work of Zehner
and Schlunder (1970). They proposed two modelsthe area contact model for packed beds of spheres and the phase symmetry
model for sponge-like materials (fibrous media). They showed that
for packed beds of spheres, their area contact model was able to
predict the thermal conductivity better than the Zehner-Schlunder
model because it took into account the finite contact area between
adjacent particles. They also developed a phase symmetry model
for sponge-like porous media (e.g., metal foams). However, they
did not validate their phase symmetry model due to lack of
experimental data. Bauer (1993) generalized Maxwell's classical
theoretical result to pores of any shape and concentration. He
further discussed cases in which other phenomena-like radiation
can be included into the analysis. Tien and Vafai (1979) derived
statistical bounds for the thermal conductivity of microsphere and
fibrous insulations based on cell geometries. Their model for
fibrous insulations was used by Hunt and Tien (1988) to study
forced convection in metal foams. Its validity is discussed later in
this paper.
Introduction
Starting with the pioneering work of Maxwell (1891), heat
conduction in fully saturated porous matrices (e.g., sand, packed
beds of cylinders and spheres, fibrous insulations, etc.) has been
studied in detail over the past several decades. Kaviany (1995) has
provided an extensive review of the available literature on the
subject along with a number of correlations and their range of
applicability.
Under simplified one-dimensional conduction conditions, two
extremes can be considered. One in which the thermal resistances
offered by the solid and fluid phases are in series (lower bound)
and the other in which they are in parallel (upper bound). The
upper bound, given by Eq. (1),
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
Subscripts
e = effective
/ = fluid
s = solid
ke=(l
- e)ks + skf,
(1)
has been successfully used in the past for packed bed studies where
the solid and fluid phases have similar conductivities. However,
the error in the prediction of ke using Eq. (1) can be considerable
as the difference in the conductivities of the phases increases.
There have been several studies that attempt to predict the thermal
conductivities of packed beds by invoking the structure of the
medium, apart from its porosity. Some of these two and onedimensional studies are reviewed below. Many of them are related
to packed beds of spheres and granular materials.
Nozad et al. (1985) solved the two-dimensional heat conduction
equation in a spatially periodic two-phase system of touching
' IBM Microelectronics, Endicott, NY 13760. e-mail: vara@us.ibm.com.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, CAMPmode, Department of Mechanical
Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0427. e-mail:
mahajan@colorado.edu. Fellow ASME.
Contributed by the Heat Transfer Division for publication in the JOURNAL OF
HEAT TRANSFER. Manuscript received by the Heat Transfer Division, July 17, 1997;
revision received, Nov. 3, 1998. Keywords: Conduction, Porous Media, Thermophysical Properties. Associate Technical Editor: M. Kaviany.
2
Medium
Figure 1 shows a picture of the metal foam medium. It has an
open-celled structure composed of dodecahedron-like cells which
have 12-14 pentagonal or hexagonal faces. The edges of these
cells are composed of the fibers and, typically, there is a lumping
of material (intersection) at points where the fibers intersect. The
fibrous matrix is made of aluminum alloy T-6201 which has a
thermal conductivity of 218 W/m-K. The matrix is brazed to
aluminum base plates on two sides. Two quantities, the porosity
and the pore density are used to describe the material. The porosity, e, is the ratio of the void volume to the total volume of the
medium and the pore density is the number of pores present per
unit length of the material. The latter is typically expressed in units
of pores per inch (ppi), and is roughly constant in the three
directions. The first three columns of Table 1 summarize the
properties of the metal foam samples which were used in the
experimental study. The porosities (provided by the manufacturer)
were determined using the weight of the sample with the density of
aluminum. Note that the pore density is a nominal quantity used to
MM%WrV?itiM
Fig. 2
Schematic of setup used for the metal foam and air experiments
Experiment
(Metal Foam and Air): A schematic of the experimental
setup is shown in Fig. 2. The physical dimensions of the metal
foam are 6.3 cm X 6.3 cm X 4.6 cm. The metal foam is brazed at
the top and bottom to two aluminum plates (4.7 mm thick). Four
T-type thermocouples are attached to each of these two plates at
points of varying distance (see Calmidi, 1998, for details). The top
plate is heated from above using patch heaters connected to a DC
power supply. The surfaces above the heaters and the four sides are
insulated using very low conductivity styrofoam. The bottom plate
is cooled from below by immersing its bottom surface into a tank
which contains cooling water maintained at constant temperature.
A silicone-based sealant is used to ensure that the water does not
leak out of the tank.
Since the metal foam sample is heated from above, cooled from
below and insulated on the rest of the four sides, there is heat
conduction in one direction only (as shown in Fig. 2) and buoyancy effects are negligible. Thus, if "q" is the net heat input
through the top aluminum plate, then
q =
kcAmAT/Lm.
(2)
No.
Porosity
Pore density
(pores/inch)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
0.971
0.946
0.905
0.949
0.909
0.978
0.949
0.906
0.972
0.952
0.937
5
5
5
10
10
20
20
20
40
40
40
Conductivity
(air + foam)
(W/m-K)
Conductivity
(water + foam)
(W/m-K)
2.70
4.60
6.70
4.00
6.70
2.20
3.90
6.90
2.50
3.90
4.50
3.70
5.40
7.65
4.95
7.60
3.05
4.807.65
3.30
4.75
5.35
top and bottom plates, was noted. This procedure was repeated for
different values of heat input. The maximum heat input to the
patch heaters was restricted to about 5-8 W depending on the
porosity of the sample being measured. Since the thermal conductivity varies with porosity, the maximum heat input to the heaters
was set such that the temperature difference across the plates did
not increase beyond ~15C. The variation in temperature across
each of the two plates was less than 0.3C, which is the accuracy
of the temperature measurement. At lower temperature differences, the variation was even lower. Thus the two plates were
essentially isothermal.
The temperature difference between the hot and cold plates
obtained as described above was plotted as a function of the heat
input. All data points lied on a straight line passing through the
origin. Further, the y-intercept was less than 0.2C in all cases
indicating that the relationship is linear and that buoyancy effects
and other nonlinear effects are indeed negligible. From the slope of
AT/q, the measured value of the thermal conductivity of the
sample is
*, = L m /(A,(Ar/ ? ) s]ope ).
(3)
water
Empirical correlation
j _
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
1-e
Fig. 3
Experimental data given in Table 1 plotted along with empirical correlation (Eq. (4))
- e)"'
(4)
The best fit was obtained for n = 0.763. However, the value of
A was found to be 0.181 for air and 0.195 for water. The maximum
and average absolute errors were found to be 6.9 percent and 3.7
percent for air and 7.5 percent and 3.1 percent for water, respectively. The experimental data in Table 1 along with the empirical
correlation given in Eq. (4) are shown in Fig. 3.
Analytical Model
Unit Cell
Fig. 4
After substituting for "t" from Eq. (11), the resulting quadratic
equation in bIL can be solved for bIL as follows:
-r + Jrl +
Fig. 5
#'
1 +
(1
r 1+
(14)
/
locally, globally the heat transfer is indeed one-dimensional. For
determining the effective thermal conductivity, the unit cell in Fig. 5
can be divided into three layers in series. The conductivity of each
layer, in turn, is derived separately by applying the parallel law of
thermal resistances.
In layer 1, the solid and fluid phases are in parallel. Their
respective volumes are given by
Vs = t(L + b)w
and
(6)
"w" in Eqs. (5), (6) is the width in the third direction (perpendicular to the plane of the paper). The conductivity of layer 1 can be
written as
t(L + b)
t(3L)
t[3L - (L + b)]
k,
f(3L)
(7)
(*, - kf)
5
1 +b
(8)
kn = kf+l(ks
km = kf+
and
kf +
(9)
It
(10)
3~7J (ks~kf\z
b\(ks-
1 +
kf)
k,+
b
\\
I
kf +
(5)
""-
(1-r)
*,=
4r
(ks - k.
3~J3
(15)
II
Discussion
As was seen in the previous section, the area ratio r = 0.09
results is excellent agreement with experiment results for both
aluminum/air and aluminum/water systems. Due to the two-
tw
bw
(11)
i-i\
LJO
L-/-1 ,
kn
km
=++~
k\
(12)
0.20 -
where, ku kn, and km are given by Eqs. (8), (9), and (10), respectively, and L,, L2, and L3 are the heights of the three layers in
Fig. 5.
The solid volume fraction, 1-e, is the ratio of solid volume to
the volume of the unit cell. For the assumed hexagonal geometry,
it can be easily shown to be
7 ^
V3
3L L
0.30
bj
0.10
0.90
0.92
0.94
0.96
1.00
Porosity
d3)
Fig. 6
0.04
0.06
1-8
Fig. 7
Comparison of experimental results with model (Eq. (15)) for air (k, = 0.0265 W/m-K)
000.0
1 '
'
' 1
|<
ks/kf-10000
Data (air)
Data (water) _
^
100.0
^X\
ks/kf=1000
10.0
=
-
1.0
"
o^
"-*<K),_
ks/kf= 100
^ " " \
~--V. 9 ,
X ::
"~~~
ks/k(=10
ks/kf=1
^v
__is)
0.1
0.88
0.90
0.92
0.94
Porosity
0.96
0.98
1.00
Fig. 8 Effective thermal conductivity of foamed materials using Eq. (15) with r -- 0.09. Data for
aluminum/air and aluminum/water is also shown, with model predictions.
Summary
The effective thermal conductivity of high-porosity fibrous
metal foams has been investigated experimentally. Experiments
have been conducted using both air and water as the fluid phases.
An empirical correlation has been developed based on the experimental data. A theoretical model has also been derived based on
the hexagonal structure of the metal foam matrix. The model
matches extremely well with the experimental results for both air
and water for an area ratio value of 0.09. It is expected that the
experimentally validated model for the thermal conductivity will
be helpful in the evaluation of metal foams as possible candidates
as heat sinks in electronic cooling applications.
Acknowledgments
This work has been funded by CAMPmode, The Center for
Advanced Manufacturing, and Packaging of microwave, optical,
and digital electronics at the University of Colorado. The help
received from Mr. Kyoung-Hwan Ahn for experiments with water
is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank Dr.
Yoichi Yokoyama for the many useful discussions and Mr. Bryan
Leyda of ERG (Energy Research and Generation), Inc., for providing the samples used in the experimental study and for helpful
discussions during the course of this work.
References
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