Novel Heat Exchanger Materials for Fuel-Air Cooler Heat Exchanger

Open cell foam, which provides the highest heat transfer surface areas per unit volume, is considered as an excellent heat exchanger core material. Pyrolytic Carbon coated reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) foam, which offers highly conductive foam ligaments and is available in different pore sizes and density, provides wide design options. A hybrid heat exchanger composed of carbon foam as heat transfer core and metallic parting sheet can provide efficient heat transfer performance, acceptable pressure drop, sound structure that is compatible with external ducting, and meet leak tightness required for a fuel-air heat exchanger. Under this program, we plan to further optimize existing RVC based carbon foams to achieve improved thermal performance with minimum impact on the flow resistance. We also plan to further improve the reliability of joining between carbon foam and aluminum parting sheet meeting both thermal and structural requirements. In addition, we plan to identify and demonstrate new foam materials for advanced heat exchanger applications.