Investigation of Kelvin-like solid foams for potential engineering applications: An attractive set of geometrical and thermo-hydraulic properties

TL;DR

This paper develops mathematical models and simulations to analyze the geometrical, flow, and thermal properties of Kelvin-like open cell foams, aiming to optimize their engineering applications.

Contribution

It introduces generalized correlations for geometrical and thermo-hydraulic properties of isotropic and anisotropic open cell foams using tetrakaidecahedron geometry.

Findings

Derived correlations for geometrical specific surface area.

Numerical simulations of pressure drop across flow regimes.

Predictions of effective thermal conductivity based on foam geometry.

Abstract

Open cell foams have diverse industrial applications e.g. heat exchangers, structured reactors, filtration due to their unique properties such as high porosity and high specific surface area. In order to theoretically determine the geometric specific surface area and relationships between geometrical parameters of isotropic open cell foams, a generalized mathematical correlation was developed. For this purpose the tetrakaidecahedron geometry was used and different shapes of strut cross-sections of foam structures were taken explicitly into account. The derived correlation to predict geometrical properties can be easily extended to different strut shapes. 3-D numerical simulations at pore scale were performed to study the pressure drop characteristics and effective thermal conductivity. Fluid flow through open cell foam was performed in three different regimes: Darcy regime, transition regime and inertia regime. Importance of geometrical properties on fluid flow characteristics and their inclusion in the proposed correlations for predicting pressure drop is discussed. Can Ergun parameters have constant numerical values or not is also extensively discussed. Three different correlations were derived to predict the effective thermal conductivity for both, isotropic and anisotropic open cell foams. Geometrical parameters of foam matrix were introduced in the correlations to predict effective thermal conductivity.