Determination of the thermal conductivity of periodic APM foam models

Abstract

Advanced pore morphology (APM) foam elements have a spherical outer skin and a porous inner structure. In this study, the method of Lattice Monte Carlo is applied to determining the thermal characterisation of periodic structures formed by spherical APM foam elements. Two diameters, i.e. 5 mm and 10 mm spheres, are considered. To this end, micro-computed tomography data of real samples is converted into numerical calculation models. This procedure allows the accurate geometric representation of the complex internal foam geometry. Lattice Monte Carlo is then used to obtain the effective thermal conductivity of partial and syntactic structures made up of APM foam elements. Samples are analysed for variation in absolute and directional (anisotropy) thermal conductivity.