Geometrical tortuosity 3D calculations in infiltrated aluminium cellular materials

Tortuosity is a parameter of a key importance to model and predict transport properties either in solid phase (thermal, electrical) and/or fluid one (acoustic, mass/heat flow, etc.). However, its experimental determination it not direct and is always based on correlated physical variables. We propose here several geometrical definitions of the tortuosity based on 3D computations. This work presents results on the determination of tortuosity for a collection of different cellular metallic materials using 3D tomography data sets. The analysis involves cellular aluminium materials produced by high pressure die casting (HPDC) at IFAM Bremen. The geometrical tortuosity analysis has been carried out in both solid and fluid phases and in the three main spatial directions. Results are compared and correlated with other characteristics of the cellular metals under study. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd.