Evaluation of the effects of the metal foams geometrical features on thermal and fluid-dynamical behavior in forced convection

Abstract

Metal foams are a material, featuring interesting characteristics for the aeronautical and automotive fields because of their low specific weight, high thermal properties, and mechanical performances. In particular, this paper deals with thermal and fluid dynamic study of 24 open-cell aluminum EN43500 (AlSi10MnMg) metal foams produced by indirect additive manufacturing (I-AM), combining 3D printing and metal casting to obtain a controllable morphology. A study of foam behavior function of the morphological features (pores per inch (PPI), branch thickness (r), and edges morphology (smooth-regular)) was performed. The samples produced were heated by radiation and tested in an open wind circuit gallery to measure the fluid dynamic properties such as pressure drop (Δp), inertial coefficient (f), and permeability (k), in an air forced convection flow. The thermal characterization was performed evaluating both the theoretical (kth) and effective (keff) thermal conductivity of the foams. Also, the global heat transfer coefficient (HTCglobal) was evaluated with different airflow rates. Analysis of variance (ANoVA) was performed to figure out which geometrical parameters are significant during both thermal and fluid dynamic processes. The results obtained show how the controllable foam morphology can affect the involved parameters, leading to an ad hoc design for industrial applications that require high thermo-fluid-dynamical performances.

Enhancing the Structural Strength for Injection Molding Tooling With Conformal Cooling Channels Using ANSYS Software

“…The wax was used as materials to fabricate conformal cooling channels because it can be removed easily from the wax injection molding tooling by water vapor. The wax pattern of the conformal cooling channels can be fabricated by a low-pressure wax injection machine [23,24] (0660, W&W Inc.). Figure 7 shows the process layouts for fabricating injection molding tooling with conformal cooling channels.…”

Mechanical and Morphological Characterizations of Laminated Object Manufactured 3D Printed Biodegradable Poly(lactic)acid with Various Physical Configurations

“…Parandoush et al [39] worked on a new technique of laser assisted-LOM of carbon fiber-reinforced sheets and used graphene as a reinforcement between laminated layers to improve the strength of the joined part. Several studies have taken design consideration for FDM printing and other technique, which have shown an impact on the characteristics of the material used in the study [44][45][46][47][48].…”

Archives of Foundry Engineering

“…Thanks to their low density and high relative compressive strength they are an attractive material in automotive and aircraft branches, where mass reduction allows a significant decrease in fuel consumption [1]. Open-cell metal foams can be used as heat exchangers in thermal energy storage (TES) units due to their high surface to volume ratio and structure enhancing flow mixing [2,3]. Their high specific surface area offers many other applications, such as catalytic beds [4,5], condensers in chemical reactors and filters [6,7], or mechanical waves isolation for noise cancellation [8].…”