PERMEABILITY AND THERMAL TRANSPORT IN COMPRESSED OPEN-CELLED FOAMS

A computational methodology is proposed to describe the fluid transport in compressed open-celled metallic foams. Various unit-cell foam geometries are numerically deformed under uniaxial loads using a finite element method. An algorithm is developed and implemented to deform the fluid domain mesh inside the unit-cell foam based on the deformed solid unit-cell geometry. Direct simulations of the fluid transport in these deformed meshes are then performed over a range of Reynolds numbers used in practical applications. The model is validated against available experimental results and correlations. A corrected model is proposed for the permeability of compressed foams as a function of strain for flows transverse to the direction of compression. The thermal conductivity of fluid-saturated foams is also computed. Compression of foams increases the conductivity transverse to the direction of compression and decreases the conductivity parallel to it.