Heat Transfer in Porous Graphite Foams

Measured values of heat transfer and pressure loss are presented for a variety of porous graphite foams in subsonic turbulent airflow. These foams were developed over the last decade to find combinations of high conductivity, porosity, strength, and low density suitable for application to rapid cooling of electronics and to corrosionless heat-exchangers. Measured maxima in the thermal performance that is the ratio of heat transfer to pressure loss, were correlated the pore structure obtained from scanning electron microscopy, to show a linear dependence of thermal performance on the average diameter of interpore windows representative of the cross-sectional area through which cooling air flows. For the same heat transfer, measured pressure losses were reduced by over two orders of magnitude by increasing pore and window diameters. However, the best thermal performance of porous graphite foams that were strong enough for industrial application, had measured pressure losses that were more than an order of magnitude greater than losses in conventional finned heat exchangers.