Metal foams: Novel materials for air cooling and heating application- Performance under dry, wet and frosting conditions

Metal foams have emerged as a potential material for advanced heat exchangers in air-cooling systems. The novel materials have a large surface-area-to-volume ratio and a tortuous structure which promotes flow mixing in heat exchanger applications. The current study provides an overview of the thermal-hydraulic performance of metal foam heat exchangers under dry, wet and frosting operations. The experiments have been conducted in a wind tunnels at a range of operating conditions varying air flow rate, inlet air temperature and relative humidity and the associated pressure drop and heat transfer rate have been measured. The impact of metal foam geometry has been evaluated and the findings have been summarized for heat transfer rate and pressure drop when the heat exchanger operates at various operating conditions.