Numerical Study of Fan Coil Heat Exchanger with Copper Foam

Due to its high porosity as well as a high specific surface area, the use of open cell metallic foam in heat transfer applications has received increasing interest. In present study, the dynamic and thermal performance of heat exchanger composed of copper foam incorporated in a fan coil was numerically analyzed. Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer model was used to represent the momentum equation inside the metallic foam (a porous medium). A local thermal equilibrium was used to solve the energy equation through the porous medium. Different porosity values were taken during the study, ranging from 0.88 to 0.98, while the velocity of inlet air of the heat exchanger ranged from 1 m/s to 10 m/s. The objective of current study is to compare the thermal and dynamic performance of the heat exchanger affected by several variables such as heat transfer coefficient, friction factor, pressure drop, Colburn factor, and area goodness factor. The results showed that increasing the air inlet velocity will increase the heat transfer coefficient, but on the other hand, increasing the velocity ten times will rise pressure drop from 19.032 Pa to 335.76 Pa. Also, the area goodness factor value will decrease with increasing inlet velocity. Finally, we found that increasing in medium porosity will reduce heat transfer coefficient but increase pressure drop.