Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.
This paper presents the results of an experimental
investigation of forced convection heat transfer in microcellular
graphite foam of high thermal conductivity. The test section
was designed to be adiabatic with constant heat flux supplied at
the bottom of the channel. The graphite foam heat sinks were
fabricated into different structures and compared with
conventional aluminum heat sinks of the same configurations.
Heat transfer characteristics including local temperature and
Nusselt number distributions for steady flow through the tested
heat sinks were measured and discussed. The results show that
graphite foam heat sinks give better heat transfer performance
as compared to conventional aluminum heat sinks for different
configurations. The highest heat transfer rate is obtained by the
graphite foam heat sink with a fin structure. The study implies
that graphite foam material can offer a combination of
properties ideally suited for applications in high heat flux
thermal management applications where conventional materials
and products are not adequate.
