An Investigation and Characterization of Metal Foam Filled Double-pipe Heat Exchangers

Master of Science, Graduate Program in Mechanical Engineering
University of California, Riverside, August 2014
Dr. Kambiz Vafai, Chairperson

Abstract: The  effect  of  using  metal  foams  in  double-pipe  heat  exchangers  is investigated in this work. The advantages and drawbacks of using metal
foams in these types of heat exchangers is characterized and quantified. The analysis starts with an investigation of forced convection in metal foam  filled  heat  exchangers  using  Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy  model  and  the  LTE  energy  model.  An  excellent  agreement  is displayed between the present results and established analytical results. The presented work enables one to establish the optimum conditions for the use of metal-foam filled double-pipe heat exchangers.