Improvement of Heat Transfer by Mixed Convection in a Channel Partially Filled with Metallic Foam Subjected to Solar Radiation

Metal foams possess high porosity, high strength-to-weight ratio, and excellent thermal conductivity, making them suitable for a range of engineering applications, including thermal heat exchange and energy storage systems. In this study, we focused on investigating the application of mixed convection in a three-dimensional heated channel filled with metallic foam to enhance solar radiation absorption. The Darcy-Brinkman model and the two-equation energy model, assuming local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE), were utilized to conduct numerical simulations using the finite volume method (FVM) and iterative SIMPLE algorithm. We analyzed the dynamic and thermal fields for various thermal conductivity ratios \(\left( {\tilde{\lambda }} \right)\) and observed that incorporating two blocks of metal foam into the channel improves heat transfer and achieves thermal mixing at the channel output, particularly for high thermal conductivity ratios \(\left( {\tilde{\lambda }} \right)\) .