THERMAL ANALYSIS OF BAFFLED METAL FOAMS IN AN ASYMMETRICALLY HEATED CHANNEL
Thimmaiah A. G.*, Sadananda Megeri*, Banjara Kotresha#, Muniraju M.*, Shubha T. C.$, Suresh Kote$, Jhansilakshmi K. P.*, Shashikumar C. M.^
*Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Haveri-581110, India
#Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Huvinahadagali-583219, India
$Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Talakal-583238, India
^Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, 576104, India
Abstract: The present work predicts the thermo-hydraulic performance of baffled metal foams (MF) filled in an asymmetrically heated channel. The province taken up for the investigation consists of a horizontal channel in which an aluminum solid plate is placed on the top of the channel. A constant heat flux is provided on the heater, which is attached to the solid plate. Heat transfer (HT) from the plate in the channel is carried away by the water fluid flowing at different inlet velocities (0.02 to 0.3 m/s). The novelty of the examination is to use baffle MF to increase the HT rate and reduce the pressure loss, which reduces the fluid’s pumping power. The flow and HT along the baffle MF are predicted using Darcy Extended Forchheimer (DEF) and Local thermal equilibrium models, respectively. The present adopted methodology in the study is authenticated with the help of comparing pressure loss and heat transfer coefficient results of experiments and present numerical results and found a fairly good agreement between them. The results of both baffle MF and completely filled MF scenarios are presented and discussed. From the results of pressure loss and HT, it is noted that the baffle MF gives a lesser heat transfer rate compared to completely filled MF, but the pressure loss is approximately reduced by 50% for baffle MF compared to completely filled MF.
Keywords: Baffle, Metal Foam, Porous Media, Channel, Nusselt number
VOLUME 9 ISSUE 11 2025: 89 – 98