Numerical investigation of the flue gas thermal efficiency of open cell copper foam integrated recuperative burner head structure

n this thesis, the effect of open cell metal foam structures integrated into recuperative burner systems on heat transfer was investigated by numerical methods. Recuperative burners are systems that aim to increase energy efficiency by recovering waste heat. In this context, two different burner head models were created using open cell copper foam and traditional silicon carbide heads and these models were analyzed with the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis module using Siemens FloEFD software. Temperature distributions, velocity profiles, pressure losses and heat transfer coefficients were evaluated comparatively. The results obtained showed that open cell metal foams significantly increase heat transfer performance thanks to their properties such as high surface area and thermal conductivity. In addition, the energy efficiency of the models was calculated with the Siegert factor approach, and it was concluded that open cell metal foam structures offer an effective alternative for recuperative burner systems.