Analysis of anisotropic behaviour of thermal conductivity in cellular metals

Anisotropy of the effective thermal conductivities of a cellular metal is considered with the metallic foam material M-pore (R) being used as a test case. Extensive finite element analyses are performed making use of computed tomography scans. To address the anisotropic behaviour of the material in detail, we develop a new two-dimensional analysis in each of the originally chosen coordinate planes. This allows the maximum and minimum thermal conductivities in the planes and for the bulk material to be fully determined. (C) 2011 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.