Metal foam - a material for heat engineering. Porous structures increase the efficiency of heat exchangers and cooling elements

Metal foams are increasingly developing into materials with diverse uses. While metal foams with closed pores have already become established as rigid and strong lightweight materials, the open-cell variant is suitable for thermal engineering applications. Until now, the material has been rarely used in heat exchangers or coolers because the production is expensive and its application little tested. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Dresden now want to change this. Together with industry partners, they are further developing the production method, are characterising different metal foams and are testing them in practice.