Design and fabrication of aluminium foam tube for heat exchanger application

• Published in: ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Main Author: Lias I.; Nasir M.I.; Ismail M.H.; Mamat A.M.I.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asian Research Publishing Network 2016
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84979282670&partnerID=40&md5=e61f932d48eb48d989bc7155b38f1f66
• ISSN: 18196608

Aluminium foam is a metal that consist of porous medium with special characteristics such as good energy absorption, high thermal conductivity and good heat transfer. The special characteristic make suitable to be used for a wide range of application include heat exchanger and energy absorption. The aim of this project is to design and fabricate aluminium foam tube for heat exchanger application. The infiltration method with vacuum-gas was used to fabricate aluminium foam tube. Stainless steel mould was designed with diameter size of 10 cm and core at the centre. The aluminium foam produced was scanned by using CT-Scan to observe the geometry and pores size after replication. In addition, the density and porosity of aluminium foam tube also determined in order to get correlation between the space holder used. Result show that aluminium foam tube with large size was fabricated successfully by using infiltration method with vacuum-gas. The aluminium foam tube with diameter of 10 cm and height of 4 cm to 13 cm was produced by this method. The pore size of the foam tube is in range of 2 mm to 6 mm .This aluminium foam manufacture method can be produced for variety of shape and size and can be applied for many applications. © 2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN).