Micro-Xray Tomography based pore-scale simulation of additively manufactured wicks
Ang, Marcus Hwang, Gisuk Roberts, Scott Ahmed, Ikramuddin
Ang, Marcus
Hwang, Gisuk
Roberts, Scott
Ahmed, Ikramuddin
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2025-05-31
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Image segmentation,Meshing,OpenFOAM,Permeability,Porosity,Smoothing
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Marcus Ang, Gisuk Hwang, Scott Roberts, Ikramuddin Ahmed, (2025). Micro-Xray Tomography based pore-scale simulation of additively manufactured wicks,
International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Volume 250, 127294, ISSN 0017-9310, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2025.127294. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0017931025006337)
Abstract
Recent technological advancements in additive manufacturing (AM) offer the design flexibility of desired wick structures for high heat flux cooling systems for miniaturized electronic, thermoelectric power, and space systems, to name a few. Despite the successful experimental demonstration of the AM wicks, the accurate predictions of key thermophysical properties are far behind, mainly due to non-uniform pore structures. In this study, a micro-Xray computed tomography (μCT)-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is developed to accurately predict permeability. To develop the pore-scale simulation approach, an AM wick was fabricated and approximately 2,000 tomographic images were generated using the voxel size of ∼ 0.6 μm. The images are processed and the reconstructed model is imported into an open-source CFD code, i.e., OpenFOAM. The predicted porosity and permeability are compared with the experimental results. To predict permeability, the simpleFOAM solver was used for laminar flow simulation under small pressure gradient and symmetric boundary conditions at ambient temperature, followed by Darcy's law for the permeability calculation. The predicted permeability in the z-direction showed 2.24 × 10–12 m2, which agrees reasonably with the experimental results (1.25 × 10–12 m2). The permeability was also estimated using the Carman-Kozeny relation (2.13 × 10–13 m2), which underpredicts both CFD and experimental results. The results obtained provide insights into the tailored heat and mass transfer of the AM wicks for optimal wick designs and AM process map. © 2025 Elsevier Ltd
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Elsevier Ltd
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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
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00179310