Water Pool boiling on Aluminum Metal Foams

With current growth in electronic systems, their physical sizes decrease, and the spacing between components decreases, both the total amount of heat generated and the power density increase significantly. There is a general agreement in the scientific community that current air-cooling technologies are asymptotically approaching their intrinsic limits. Pool boiling is widely used in many different engineering systems, but most of these applications have a common limitation: the maximum heat flux that can be rejected by the cooling systems under safe, reliable, and efficient operation. In this paper experimental data pertinent to deionized water pool boiling across 10 mm thick aluminum foams are presented. Three foam samples with different pore densities, 5, 10, and 40 PPI, yet with an identical mean porosity of 0.92 are tested. Compared to a heated flat plate, the foams offer higher heat transfer area albeit at induced bubble escaping resistance. The tradeoff between these two effects is investigated. Through the use of high speed video camera recording, bubble generation, trajectory and growth rate were analyzed and critically discussed.