Hex-PORTMAN: Heat Flux Splitting in Porous Materials for Thermal Management

热管理在航空航天、汽车、计算和可再生能源等众多行业的技术开发效率、安全性和可靠性方面发挥着至关重要的作用。这些行业的发展最终导致了功率密度的大幅飙升，这与所产生的热通量的增加以及随后系统组件中不期望的温度升高密切相关。多孔材料（即，被孔网络渗透的固体）已被证明是用于高热通量应用中的有效冷却的有竞争力的微流体材料，因为它们的流体渗透性和高表面积，这增强了从热表面到穿过多孔介质的冷却流体的热传递。过去的研究已经从理论上研究了多孔介质系统的流动和热特性的热管理使用体积平均的方法，这是一种流行的低成本的工程方法，用于研究在多孔介质中的传输。然而，经过十多年的研究，这个问题仍然没有得到解决。这主要是因为在多孔介质中的固体和流体相之间的外部热通量的分裂机制是未知的，并且体积平均求解器的热边界条件的确定仍然是一个科学挑战。这个雄心勃勃的项目将首次通过一系列全面的实验和建模研究来解决多孔介质系统中流动和传热的基本问题。该项目将受益于与世界知名科学家的合作：Kambiz Vafai教授（KV）-加州滨江大学，Mahdi Azarpeyvand博士（MA）-布里斯托大学和Kamel Hooman教授（KH）-昆士兰州大学，一名PDRA和四名博士生参与。KV是多孔介质传输领域的世界领先科学家，他将带来他在理解多孔介质中热通量分裂方面的关键知识。MA和KH将支持系统中速度场的实验测量项目。该项目也与英国公司（Glen Dimlex，B 9 Energy和BL Refrigeration）的参与直接相关，他们将部署该项目中开发的经过充分验证的体积平均求解器，用于电子冷却，储能和太阳能光伏系统中使用多孔材料进行热管理。

Thermal management plays a vital role in determining the efficiency, safety and reliability of technological development in a plethora of industries including aerospace, automotive, computing and renewable energy sectors. The developments in these industries have culminated in a considerable surge in the power densities, which goes hand-in-hand with the increase of generated heat flux and subsequent undesirable temperature rise in system components. Porous materials (i.e. solids, which are permeated by a network of pores) have been demonstrated to be competitive microfluidic materials for effective cooling in high heat flux applications because of their fluid permeability and high surface area, which augments the heat transfer from hot surfaces to the cooling fluid passing through the porous media. Past studies have theoretically investigated the flow and thermal characteristics of the porous media systems for thermal management using the volume-averaged approach, which is a popular low-cost engineering approach for studying transport in porous media. However, after more than a decade of research, this problem has still not been resolved. This is primarily because the splitting mechanism of the external heat flux between the solid and fluid phases in the porous media is unknown and determination of the thermal boundary condition for volume-averaged solvers remains a scientific challenge. This ambitious project will, for the first time, address this fundamental problem of flow and heat transfer in porous media systems through a comprehensive series of experimental and modelling studies. This project will benefit from partnership with world-renowned scientists: Prof Kambiz Vafai (KV)-University of California Riverside, Dr Mahdi Azarpeyvand (MA)-University of Bristol and Prof Kamel Hooman (KH)-University of Queensland, with the involvement of one PDRA and four PhD students. KV is a world-leading scientist in the field of transport in porous media and will bring his key knowledge in understanding the heat flux splitting in the porous media. MA and KH will support the project for experimental measurements of the velocity field in the system. This project is also of direct relevance to industry with the involvement of UK-based companies (Glen Dimplex, B9 Energy, and BL Refrigeration) who will be deploying the fully validated volume-averaged solver developed in the project for the purpose of thermal management using porous materials in application to electronics cooling, energy storage and solar photovoltaic systems, respectively.