Thermal conductivity of aluminum foam based on 3-D stochastic sphere model

To accurately characterize the geometric structure of closed-cell aluminum foam, a three-dimensional stochastic sphere model with adjustable porosity and pore size was established, and its thermal conductivity was studied by numerical simulation. A closed-cell aluminum foam heat conduction experiment was designed to verify the accuracy of the model. Using this model, the thermal conductivity of aluminum foam with different pore sizes and porosity was calculated, and the variation of thermal conductivity was studied. The results show that with the same porosity, the thermal conductivity increases linearly with the pore size. With the same pore size, the thermal conductivity decreases linearly with the porosity. The equivalent thermal conductivity decreases with the increase of porosity. According to the simulation results, the formula of equivalent thermal conductivity of aluminum foam is lambda d=-0.1548 theta+14.2236.