Evaluation of longitudinal dispersion coefficient in open-cell foams using transient direct pore level simulation

A new method to analyze fluid flow in open-cell foams is given by the rise in computational speed, which makes it possible to calculate the heat and mass transport within these structures even with conventional CFD methods. In the present study, air flow through several structures has been explicitly calculated using the standard Navier–Stokes equations. Together with the flow, the dispersion of an initial tracer jump is tracked through the structures and analyzed with respect to effective diffusivity coefficients. The structures comprises a broad range of open-cell ceramic foams which were reconstructed from tomographic data obtained by means of MRI and μ - CT scans.