Finite Element Modeling of Forced Convection Heat Transfer in Carbon Foams

Carbon foams are a class of porous materials with direct applications to thermal management of electronics. These foams have open cell structure that can be used to flow a coolant such that the foam ligaments act as heat exchanger fins. The heat transfer and fluid flow in carbon foams is particularly difficult to model due to the complex physical structure of the carbon foam. Several attempts have been made to model convection heat transfer in porous media employing the method of volume averaging in formulation of governing equations. However, this approach cannot describe the complex interaction at the micro level and its effect on the transport at the macro level. This paper presents an analysis of forced convection heat transfer in an accurate geometrical representation of three-dimensional features in a carbon foam.