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Effect of phase change and ambient temperatures on the thermal performance of a solid-liquid phase change material based heat sinks
Marri G.K., Srikanth R.,
Published in Elsevier Ltd
2020
Volume: 30
   
Abstract
This paper reports the results of experimental and numerical investigations on the effect of phase change temperature and ambient temperature on the overall thermal performance of a composite phase change material(PCM) heat sink with embedded radial plate fins. The heat sinks are filled with different phase change materials, namely n-Eicosane, Docosane, and Tetracosane, which have phase change temperatures of 36, 44, and 52 oC respectively and with almost identical thermophysical properties. The enthalpy porosity formulation is adopted to numerically simulate, visualize the phase change process (melting and solidification) to complement the experimental results and also to quantify the energy apportioning rate in the PCM during the charging and discharging cycles for different heat inputs. The results make it evident that the heat sink with the highest phase change temperature PCM shows superiority in the charging cycle up to 68% over a low phase change temperature PCM at lower heat inputs. However, with an increase in the heat input, the effect of phase change temperature of the PCM on the charging cycle gradually vanishes. In the discharging cycle, the high phase change temperature PCM shows superiority up to 83% over a PCM with lower phase change temperature due to the high-temperature difference between the melting temperature of PCM and ambient. All things considered, the heat sink with a higher phase change temperature shows superiority up to 2.25 times over a PCM with a lower phase change temperature. Additionally, the effect of the ambient temperature on the overall thermal performance of the heat sink is studied. Experiments are conducted on heat sink filled with Tetracosane at ambient temperatures of 20, 24, and 28 oC. From the studies, it is seen that the increase in ambient temperature from 20 to 28 oC reduces the heat sink charging time up to 2.3 times while the discharging time of heat sink is increased up to 3.33 times in terms of reaching the same set-point temperature in the charging cycle and the same ambient temperature in the discharging cycle respectively. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd
About the journal
JournalData powered by TypesetJournal of Energy Storage
PublisherData powered by TypesetElsevier Ltd
ISSN2352152X
Open AccessNo