Experimental investigation of the effects of foam heoght, emissivity and orientation on Bouyancy-driven convection in open-cell aluminium foam

Abstract

Papers presented to the 11th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 20-23 July 2015.

In this paper air-saturated buoyancy-driven convection in open-cell aluminium foam is studied. The effects of foam height, radiative heat transfer and orientation are experimentally investigated. Two aluminium foam heat sinks with the same baseplate dimensions (6” by 4”) are tested. Their respective foam height is 22 mm and 40 mm. The aluminium foam has a porosity of 0.946 and a pore density of 10 pores per linear inch. The heat sinks are tested in a vertical and a horizontal orientation. The effect of radiation is studied by comparing untreated heat sinks with painted versions. During the experiments the power dissipated by the heat sinks is measured as function of the temperature difference between the baseplate of the heat sink and the ambient. The temperature difference is varied from 10 to 70°C.