Forced convective heat transfer performance of foam-like structures – comparison of the Weaire-Phelan and the Kelvin structures with real metal foam

Real foam and foam-liked structures have been widely used in the field of flow and heat transfer but whether foam-like structures can be used as an alternative to metal foams for forced convective heat transfer needs to be further investigated. In this study, three foam structures (Weaire-Phelan, Kelvin and metal foam) were compared by simulation under turbulent conditions and the flow heat transfer characteristics have been evaluated. The 3D models of the two foam-liked structures were constructed using CAD software and the 3D model of the metal foam was scanned and reconstructed using CT. All three structures were constrained by the same pore size parameters. The results reveal that neither the Weaire-Phelan structure nor the Kelvin structure can serve as a substitute model for the real metal foam. The Weaire-Phelan structure demonstrates the best effective overall heat transfer performance (OHTP) while the Kelvin structure exhibits the worst. With an inlet velocity of 10 m/s, the area goodness factor (j/f) of the Weaire-Phelan structure is similar to the metal foam structure which is 12.3 % higher than that of the Kelvin structure. With an inlet velocity of 25 m/s, the j/f value of the metal foam structure becomes comparable to that of the Kelvin structure. However, the j/f value of the Weaire-Phelan structure exhibits 12.18% higher than the other two structures.