Properties
General Properties of Duocel® Foams
Air and Water Flow Pressure Drops
Properties Independent of Base Material
Some foam properties are solely a function of the foam structure and are totally unaffected by the choice of base material. The two most important of these are specific surface area and fluid flow resistance. These properties are influenced primarily by the pore size and secondarily by relative density.
The specific surface area of a foam is the amount of surface area within a given volume of foam. Specific surface area is the primary design driver in a number of applications including:
- Compact air-air, air-liquid, and liquid-liquid heat exchangers
- Phase change material (PCM) heat exchanger
- Catalyst support in chemical processing
- Air-oil separation in aircraft accessory gear boxes
- Temperature control of metal hydride and amine powders
- Scrubber in thin-film deposition equipment
The high specific surface area of Duocel foam enables smaller, more efficient systems. Specific surface area increases with the foam pore density and relative density. Presented below are graphs of specific surface area as a function of both of these key foam parameters. The data was calculated geometrically and verified using the multipoint BET method by the adsorption of krypton gas at cryogenic temperatures.
Air and Water Flow Pressure Drops
Duocel Foam is used in a wide variety of flow conditioning applications over an even wider range of conditions. Specific applications include:
- Compact air-air, air-liquid, and liquid-liquid heat exchangers
- Heating elements used in semi-conductor manufacturing
- Gas diffusers used in semi-conductor manufacturing
- Air-oil separation in aircraft accessory gear boxes
- Oil diffusion in hydraulic tanks
- Filtration applications in a variety of gas and fluid environments
- Flow alignment in wind tunnels
- Baffles and anti-slosh devices
- Thorough and uniform mixing of air or fluids with low pressure drop
Presented below are a number of graphs that illustrate the normalized air and water pressure drops at STP across Duocel Aluminum Foam at various pore sizes and nominal densities. Click on the graphs below to enlarge them.
