Study on Heat Transfer and Corrosion Resistance of Anodized Aluminum Alloy in Gallium-Based Liquid Metal

Abstract

Gallium-based liquid metal (LM) inherits excellent thermophysical properties and pollution-free characteristics. However, it has long been a fatal problem that LM would cause serious corrosion and embrittlement on the classical substrate made of aluminum alloys in constructing chip cooling device. Here, anodic oxidation treatment was introduced on processing the aluminum alloy aiming to tackle the corrosion issues. The prepared anodic oxidation aluminum (AAO) coatings were composed of nanopore layers and barrier layers on a high-purity alumina matrix that were manufactured electrochemically. According to the measurement, the effective thermal conductivity of the anodized aluminum alloy increases with the total thickness of sample increasing. When the total thickness L exceeds 5 × 10−3 m, effects of the porous media on effective thermal conductivity are negligible via model simulation and calculation. It was experimentally found that aluminum alloy after surface anodization treatment presented excellent corrosion resistance and outstanding heat transfer performance even when exposed in eutectic gallium–indium (E-GaIn) LM over 200 °C. The convective heat transfer coefficient of LM for anodized sample reached the peak when the heat load is 33.3 W.