A study on numerical determination of permeability and inetia coefficient of aluminum foam using X-Ray microtomography techniques: Focus on inspection methods for reliability (permeability and inertia coefficient by tomography)

Abstract

The volume-averaged (i.e., macroscopic) transport properties such as permeability and inertia coefficient of two aluminum foams with 10 and 20 pores per inch (PPI) pore density are found using microtomography images. It is shown that a comparison between the numerical values and the experimental results may not be sufficient to prove the correctness of the obtained results. Hence, in addition to traditional validation methods such as grid independency and comparison with reported results in literature, further inspections such as (a) checking the development of flow, (b) inspection of Darcy and non-Darcy regions, (c) conservation of flow rate through the porous media, (d) sufficiency of number of voxels in the narrow throats, and (e) observation of transverse velocity gradients in pores for high and low Reynolds numbers can be performed to further validate the achieved results. These techniques have been discussed and explained in detail for the performed study. Moreover, the obtained permeability and inertia coefficient values are compared with 19 reported theoretical, numerical, and experimental studies. The maximum deviation between the present results and the reported studies for 10 PPI is below 25%, while for 20 PPI it is below 28%.