MATHEMATICAL RANDOM GENERATION OF METAL FOAM AND NUMERICAL 3D SIMULATIONS OF HEAT TRANSFER IN A HYBRID SOLAR COLLECTOR

Abstract

The primary motive of the study is to explore numerically the heat transfer a hybrid solar collector, which is a partially filled Cartesian channel with random generated Metal Foam (MF). The channel is subjected to solar irradiation, and through it the air flows.To generate the MF, random Gaussian correlations are used. This technique allows spatial control of density, permeability, and porosity, whose values are also theoretically accessible. To solve the equations of fluid dynamics and heat transfer, a finite volume multigrid scheme is used. Energy equation is framed on the two temperatures model, and momentum equation is that of the clear fluid case, since the pore’s volumes are largely greater than the VER in the porous media. Thevelocity as well as temperature fields are discussed for different pertinent parameters, and mathematic correlations are given between the Nusselt, the porosity, the Richardson and the Reynolds numbers. It is found that beyond two blocks, it is useless to add MF because we reach higher homogeneity in temperature and good efficiency in heat transfer. It is also found that the two temperatures model is very realisticthan models with averaged properties, and gives wide range of perspectivesthanks to the possibility of carrying out numerical and experimental investigations onthe same MF model: randomly generated and printable in 3D