Forced Convection in Porous Medium Using Triply Periodical Minimum Surfaces

Abstract

Recent developments in the 3D printing of metals are attracting many researchers and engineers. Tailoring a porous structure using triply periodic minimum surfaces is becoming an excellent approach for cooling electronic equipment. The availability of metallic 3D printing encourages researchers to study cooling systems using porous media. In the present article, we designed a porous structure using a gyroid model produced using 3D printing. Porous aluminum has a 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9 porosity, respectively. The porous medium is tested experimentally using distilled fluid as the cooling liquid, while the structure is subject to bottom heating with a heat flux of 30,000 W/m2. A different inlet velocity from 0.05 m/s to 0.25 m/s is applied. On the numerical side, the porous medium is modeled as a porous structure, and only the Navier–Stokes equations and the energy equation were solved using the finite element technique. In addition, an excellent agreement between the experimental measurement and numerical calculation, an optimum porosity of 0.8 was obtained. The performance evaluation criterion led us to believe that pressure drop plays a significant role in heat enhancement for this type of gyroid structure. As the porosity increases, the boundary layer becomes more noticeable.