UQ eSpace

Abstract

With increased public awareness, and tightening restrictions on vehicle emissions, significant research has been completed into developing EGR Coolers for diesel engines that are less susceptible to particulate fouling. One such solution is the use of an open cell foam heat exchanger, which has shown promising results in numerous studies. In these studies however, flow phenomena unique to open cell foams has been observed, concluding that further research into these flow behaviours should be completed before product implementation. Due to the long experiment times and expensive imaging equipment associated with this however, the high cost often restricts further testing. This thesis was aimed at providing a monetarily and numerically inexpensive method to predict the flow behaviours through foam samples of varying pore density and spacing. To achieve this, two different simulations methods were employed using ANSYS Fluent 18.2, one using a volume averaged approach, and the other using a simplified 2dimensional representation of the foam ligaments, the "2D Slice" method. The results from this were compared to existing experimental data, showing that both methods could successfully reproduce experimental trends, and predict within reasonable accuracy flow velocities and pressure drops. For high pore densities both methods produced roughly equivalent results, however the more computationally intensive 2D slice method showed significant benefits for low pore density samples. Through analysis of these results, several areas for further improvement were recommended, and recommendations made for how these simulations could form the foundations for future, more complex work. ρ Density (kg/m 3)