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ISSN Online: 2377-424X

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-474-8

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-473-1

International Heat Transfer Conference 16
August, 10-15, 2018, Beijing, China

NUMERICAL STUDY ON THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OPTIMIZATION OF COMPOSITE PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC16.ecs.022861
pages 4327-4334

Résumé

Solid−liquid phase change materials (PCMs) are attractive candidates for thermal energy storage and electronics cooling applications, but have limited applicability due to their low intrinsic thermal conductivities, result in an insufficient latent heat storage. Composite PCMs filling with high thermal conductivity materials have been proposed to solve this issue, but the latent heat of the composite PCMs decrease with the fillings loading accordingly. Therefore, a compromise between the thermal conductivity and latent heat is significant to the performance of the composite PCMs. In this study, we dedicated to optimizing the thermal conductivity of composite PCM to confirm a sufficient latent heat storage process and the least latent heat reduction simultaneously. A thermal resistance model of a typical phase-change based thermal storage unit (TSU) was developed to predict the optimal thermal conductivity. The accuracy of the model was confirmed by finite elements method (FEM) and the deviations were within 1%. The effect of heat flux, the aspect ratio of TSU, and the melting point on the optimal thermal conductivity were further investigated. Results showed that a larger aspect ratio is preferred at a higher heat flux, and a lower melting point will benefit for the performance of TSU.