GEOMETRICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF KELVIN-LIKE METAL FOAMS FOR DIFFERENT STRUT SHAPES AND POROSITY
Résumé
Kelvin cell foams are an idealization of replication foams and nowadays are also materialized for various industrial purposes. There are several works dealing with thermo-hydraulic properties of foams in relation to their structure. The thermo-hydraulic behavior of open-cell foams depends on their microscopic structure. Various ideal periodic isotropic structures of tetrakaidecahedron shapes with constant cross section of the ligament having circular, square, diamond, hexagon, and star strut shapes with various orientations are studied. Computer aided design (CAD) modeling has been used to produce various shapes in the porosity range from 60 to 95%. A generalized analytical model has been proposed in order to obtain geometrical parameters correctly as they have substantial influence on thermal and hydraulic phenomena, where strut geometry is of primary importance. Various relationships between different geometrical parameters and porosities are presented. The analytical results are compared with experimental data from the literature. An excellent agreement has been observed between the predicted correlations, data obtained from CAD measurements, and experiments.