Performance of a Metal Foam Coated Airfoil Tube Cross-Flow Heat Exchanger

Abstract

This study presents a numerical study of the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of airfoil tube with porous metal foam in crossflow. A unified modelling approach is used to model the flow and heat transfer in the simulation domain. The model is first verified and validated against circular tube forced convection problem with known empirical relation. Then, the effects of airfoil shape parameters and metal foam properties are studied. Among these, airfoil thickness is the most significant parameter, and the performance index increases as foam thickness and permeability increase, while it decreases with the increase of porosity.