Metal foam is a novel functional material, which can enhance the heat transfer effect due to its high porosity and complex three-dimensional net structure. It will be widely used in the field of heat transfer. However, due to the complex structure of porous foam metal, its mechanism of heat transfer enhancement is not clearly understood and lack of systematic research on influential factors on heat transfer and flow resistance characteristics of foam-metal. Experimental study is high cost and long cycle time, and the complex structure makes the experimental observation of fluid flow in porous metal foam is difficult. In numerical simulation, the model is too simple to the large error or accurate but time-consuming and computing hardware requirements are too high. In this study, based on the micro structure of open-cell metal foams, a simplified hexahedral structure model of open-cell metal foams is proposed. The fluid flow and heat transfer performance was numerically simulated by using the commercial software FLUENT14.0.Based on micro structure of open cell metal foams, this paper propo ses a simplified hexahedral structure model. The results show that the calculated convection heat transfer coefficient and pressure gradient are in good agreement with those measured by Alvarez. Based on proposed model and method, the characteristic of fluid flow and temperature distribution is analyzed respectively. Besides, combined with comprehensive performance evaluation index of heat exchangers, the influence of key parameters of metal-foam porosity, pore density and materials with different thermal conductivity on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of metal-foam is analyzed. The heat transfer and resistance of part of the different structural metal-foams correlations are obtained. Finally, the flow, temperature and pressure distribution of different Reynolds number and different pore structure is analyzed, and heat transfer enhancement mechanism of heat exchanger is studied in theoretically. Provide a basis guide for design, optimization and engineering application of metal foam plate heat exchanger, which has a certain significance. |