Investigation of natural convection from intermittent foam blocks in a cavity

Abstract

Natural convection heat transfer from intermittent open-celled aluminum metallic foams in a cavity has been investigated experimentally. Air was used as the working fluid. The test section was equipped with 3x3 aluminum-foam blocks placed on copper blocks subjected to uniform heat flux. The convective heat transfer rate from smooth heated surfaces without foam blocks is compared with the results obtained from 10 PPI aluminum foam blocks. The averaged temperature and the averaged Nusselt number distributions on the heating surface were tested under different heating power. The experimental study was made for modified Grashof numbers 1.19x106 to 7.45x106. As a result of comparisons, the aluminum-foam blocks with the pore density 10 PPI showed about 86% higher averaged- Nusset number than that without the foam blocks in a cavity

Keywords

• Natural convection, Aluminum-foam blocks, Electronics cooling

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