Flow and heat transfer in a channel with a wire-woven bulk Kagome structure

Heat exchangers with periodic cellular metals (PCM) have become a substitute for those having louvered fins since they present good thermal performance and high mechanical strength for a given weight. Accordingly, heat transfer of a Wire-woven Bulk Kagome (WBK) sandwich panel was investigated in this study under constant heat flux conditions for various values of helical pitch lengths and wire diameters. The simulations for the flow, convection, and conduction were conducted by using the k-epsilon turbulence model. The channel was extended to avoid any entrance or exit effects. The numerical results showed that the friction factor and heat transfer increased by around 50% and 30%, respectively, with the wire diameter. Additionally, increasing the wire diameter increases heat transfer performance by around 30% for identical pumping power conditions. Friction factor and heat transfer increase up to 35% with decreasing helical pitch length. Heat transfer performance decreases with the change of helical pitch length from 12.5 mm to 17.5 mm by around 35% for a given pumping power. Also, high temperature differences seen in the WBK structure show the potential for further heat transfer enhancement by other possible configurations.