Conductive and Radiative Heat Transfer in Ceramic and Metal Foams at Fire Temperatures

In addition to the multiple actual or possible applications of metal and ceramic foams in various technological fields, their thermal properties make them a good candidate for utilization as fire barriers. Several studies have shown experimentally their exceptional fire retardance due to their low apparent thermal conductivity. However, while the thermal properties of this porous material have been widely studied at ambient temperature and are, at present, well-known, their thermal behaviour at fire temperatures remains relatively unexplored. Indeed, at such temperatures, the major difficulties are not only due to the fact that thermal measurements are rendered fussy since heavy equipments are required but also stem from the fact that a significant part of the heat transfer occurs by thermal radiation which is much more difficult to evaluate than conductive heat transfer. Therefore, the present chapter is written with a view to report progress on the knowledge of heat transfer in open cell foams and to enlighten the reader on the mechanisms of heat transfer at high temperatures. A first part is devoted to the review of the prior published works on the experimental or theoretical characterisations of radiative and conductive heat transfers from ambient to high temperatures. By taking inspiration from the concepts and models presented in these previous works, we propose, in a second part, a model of prediction of the conductive and radiative contributions to heat transfer at fire temperatures. This analytical model is based on numerical simulations applied to real foams and takes into account the structure of the foam and the optical and thermal properties of the constituents. In a third part, we propose an innovative experimental technique of characterization of heat transfer in foams at high temperatures which permit to evaluate independently the radiative and conductive contributions from a unique and simple measurement. The experimental results obtained on several metal and ceramic foams are compared to the results predicted by our numerical model. The good adequacy between experimental and theoretical results show the consistency of both approaches.