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

在航空航天、汽车、计算机和可再生能源等众多行业中，热管理在决定技术开发的效率、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，这与产生的热通量的增加和随后系统部件中不希望看到的温度升高齐头并进。多孔性材料(即被一网孔渗透的固体)因其流体渗透性和高比表面积而被证明是在高热流密度应用中有效冷却的具有竞争力的微流控材料，它可以增强热表面到穿过多孔介质的冷却液的换热。以往的研究都是用体积平均法对多孔介质热管理系统的流动和热特性进行理论研究，体积平均法是研究多孔介质输运的一种流行的低成本工程方法。然而，经过十多年的研究，这个问题仍然没有得到解决。这主要是因为多孔介质中固体和液体之间外部热流的分裂机制尚不清楚，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模型研究来解决多孔介质系统中的流动和热传递这一根本问题。该项目将受益于与世界知名科学家的合作：坎比兹·瓦法伊教授(KV)-加州河滨大学，Mahdi Azarpeyvand博士(MA)-布里斯托尔大学和Kamel Hooman教授(KH)-昆士兰大学，参与合作的有一名PDRA和四名博士生。KV是多孔介质输运领域的世界领先科学家，他将带来他在理解多孔介质中热流分裂方面的关键知识。Ma和KH将支持该系统中速度场的实验测量项目。该项目还与行业直接相关，英国公司(Glen Dimplex、B9 Energy和BL Refrigation)将部署在该项目中开发的完全经过验证的体积平均求解器，目的是使用多孔材料进行热管理，分别应用于电子冷却、能量存储和太阳能光伏系统。

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.