Forced convective heat transfer in all metallic wire-woven bulk Kagome sandwich panels

This experimental study reports on forced convective heat transfer in a highly porous cellular material, wire-woven bulk Kagome (WBK), made of aluminum (Al) helix wires forming Kagome-like unit cells that are distributed periodically and sandwiched between two solid Al facesheets. Due to the topological anisotropy of the WBK, two orientations, the most open and closed orientations, were selected for pressure drop and heat transfer measurements. For the range of Reynolds numbers (Re) considered, the pressure drop in the WBK was found to be skin friction dominated at low Re (laminar flow regime; no orientation effect on pressure drop) and form dominated at high Re (transition from laminar to turbulent flow regime; slightly higher pressure drop in the most closed orientation). For heat transfer across the WBK, the Nusselt number in the most closed orientation was consistently higher than that in the most open orientation, attributable mainly to the difference in the open area ratio of the two orientations.