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metal foams have found increasing use in thermal management. their surface area is much larger than regular finned heat sinks, making the available surface area for heat transfer attractive. on the other hand, their increased pressure drop and interfacial resistance makes them vulnerable to not being useful for some applications. understanding the underlying physics behind the mesh heat sink and heat exchangers is a necessity for using them effectively in thermal management. 

savery [1] used comsol [2], which is a commercial cfd finite element software to  simulate the natural convection in a metal foam heat sink. before embarking on presenting the equations that govern the flow and heat transfer in porous media, it is helpful to understand the characteristics of porous media. 

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