Open-cell aluminum foams with bimodal pore size distributions for emerging thermal management applications

Recent advances in cellular materials for active thermal management applications involve the integral design of their porous structure. In this work, open-cell aluminum foams with porosities in the range of 0.60–0.76 are developed, containing pores with spherical geometry and a bimodal pore size distribution. The fabrication strategy involves the use of the replication method by infiltration with liquid aluminum of porous preforms formed by packing NaCl spheres of two largely different sizes (7 mm and 1 mm average diameter), which are then removed by water dissolution. The paper describes cellular materials with different proportions of coarse and fine pores. Their detailed characterization by pore volume fraction, pressure drop, permeability, thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient is supported by analytical schemes. In addition, these materials were characterized under realistic operating conditions using computational fluid dynamics simulations. The material with 67 percent coarse pores and 33 percent fine pores, which has the highest porosity (and thus permeability), has the most appealing heat dissipation properties with the lowest pressure drops, making it an excellent candidate for emerging thermal management applications in electronic systems.The authors gratefully acknowledge partial financial support from the Spanish “Agencia Estatal de Investigación” (AEI) and European Union (FEDER funds) through grants MAT2016-77742-C2-2-P and PDC2021-121617-C21. The authors would also like to acknowledge the financial support received for the same purpose from the Conselleria d'Innovació, Universitats, Ciència, i Societat Digital of the Generalitat Valenciana through grant GVA-COVID19/2021/097. F.Ç. Durmus also acknowledges financial support from the Generalitat Valenciana through a “Santiago Grisolía” grant (GRISOLIA/2017/187). L.P. Maiorano also acknowledges the financial support from the University of Alicante through grant UAFPU2019-33 "Programa Propio para el fomento de la I+D+i del Vicerrectorado de Investigación y Transferencia de Conocimiento"