Computation of the dynamic thermal dissipation properties of porous media by Brownian motion simulation: Application to an open-cell aluminum foam

Abstract

This paper reports simulation results of frequency dependent heat conduction through three-dimensional reconstructed unit cells of an open-cell aluminum foam under acoustic excitations. First, a three-dimensional random walk based algorithm is proposed to calculate the dynamic thermal permeability or dynamic bulk modulus of periodic complex porous geometries. Second, the error and convergence of the implemented calculation algorithm are quantified in terms of the random walk population, normalized trapping distance, and type of geometry. Finally, the algorithm is applied to the calculation of the dynamic bulk modulus of an aluminum foam and compared to laboratory measurements. Good agreement is obtained between simulations and measurements. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.