Phase Change Convective Heat Transfer in High Porosity Cellular Metal Foams (Chapter 9)

Abstract

This Chapter discusses phase change convective heat transfer of high porosity cellular metal foams and their practical applications in thermal energy storage (TES). The following theoretical aspects are covered: volume-averaging method, Brinkman-Forchheimer porous flow model, two-equation non-thermal equilibrium heat transfer model, enthalpy method, and phase field method. Based on these models, metal foams have been investigated in two applications: metal foam-embedded phase change materials (PCMs), and metal foam-enhanced cascaded TES. The results indicate that metal foams can improve heat and exergy transfer rates in these applications by factors between 2 and 10.