Heat transfer and fluid flow in sintered metallic fiber structures

Sintered metal fiber structures show a favorable ratio between pressure drop and inner surface area. Their exclusively open-cell morphol. makes them well suited for heat transfer or temporary heat storage applications. Recently, highly conductive sintered metal fiber structures were successfully prepd. from melt extd. aluminum alloy fibers. The heat conduction and fluid flow properties of metallic sintered short fiber structures were detd. exptl. and compared with simple anal. models. It was found that equations taken from the available literature yield good approxns. to the exptl. results. [on SciFinder(R)