Water Pool Boiling in Aluminum Foams Porous Layers

With current growth in electronic systems, their physical sizes decrease, and the spacing between components decreases, both the total amount of heat generated (hence to be dissipated) and the power density (the heat generated per unit volume) increase significantly. This work presents an experimental analysis of water pool boiling heat transfer on aluminum foams. The experimental tests were conducted to investigate water pool boiling on heated aluminum surfaces where a layer of aluminum foam was brazed. The foam samples presented 5, 10, and 40 PPI with a mean porosity of 0.92, while two thicknesses were studied, 5 and 10 mm. The data was then compared against the experimental boiling curve for a reference aluminum smooth sample. Finally, the experimental database was compared against a semi-empirical model available in the open literature.