Abstract
The goal of this paper is to enhance the in-tube flow boiling heat transfer of water while accounting for potential increase in pressure drop. Metal foams are a class of cellular structure with large surface-area-to-volume ratio and tortuous structure which has shown promising results for various energy conversion and storage applications. The higher heat transfer area and higher nucleation sites density due to the porous media can effectively enhance the heat transfer of water in both single-phase and two-phase operations. This paper presents the local heat transfer and pressure drop measurements of water in a partially metal-foam-filled horizontal copper tube. The ranges of parameters in the experiments are: mass flux from 80 to 200 kg/s-m2, heat flux from 3.5 to 105 kW/m2, and vapor quality from subcooled to 0.3. The results in the metal-foam-filled tube are compared with that of the bare copper tube. The effect of metal foam on the thermal hydraulic characteristics is discussed and analyzed. In addition, the two-phase flow behavior in a transparent tube filled with the same metal foam was visualized and investigated by high-speed imaging system. The experiments were also conducted in the tube without the metal foam for comparison.
