Infiltrating phase change material (PCM) in porous material is an effective method to improve the thermal conductivity of PCM. However, this technique inevitably causes PCM/matrices compatibility issue and volume variation of PCM in phase change. To address these problems, a new strategy for passive thermal management with microencapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) particles embedded into cellular metal foam was proposed in this study. We experimentally evaluated the thermal performance of MEPCM/foam composite. Also, the pure MEPCM control groups heated in three angles (0 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees) were employed to quantify the enhancement of foam and natural convection of core PCM. Results indicated that the pure MEPCM leaded to significant surface temperature increase and huge inner temperature difference near the wall due to the low thermal conductivity and absence of natural convection of core PCM. Comparatively, the addition of metal foam had lowered the surface temperature by maximum 47% and unified the internal temperatures in MEPCM/foam composite ascribed to the enhancement of thermal conductivity by metal foam and the fully use of PCM latent heat. Moreover, the lower porosity composite provided better thermal performance at the cost of less thermal management time. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.