Experimental assessment of heat storage properties and heat transfer characteristics of a phase change material slurry for air conditioning applications

A new microencapsulated phase change material slurry based on microencapsulated Rubitherm RT6 at high concentration (45% w/w) was tested. Some heat storage properties and heat transfer characteristics have been experimentally investigated in order to assess its suitability for the integration into a low temperature heat storage system for solar air conditioning applications. DSC tests were conducted to evaluate the cold storage capacity and phase change temperature range. A phase change interval of approximately 3 °C and a hysteresis behaviour of the enthalpy were identified. An experimental set-up was built in order to quantify the natural convection heat transfer occurring from a vertical helically coiled tube immersed in the phase change material slurry. First, tests were carried out using water in order to obtain natural convection heat transfer correlations. Then a comparison was conducted with the results obtained for the phase change material slurry. It was found that the values of the heat transfer coefficient for the phase change material slurry were higher than for water, under identical temperature conditions inside the phase change interval.

[1]  T. Newell,et al.  Thermal performance of microencapsulated phase change material slurry in turbulent flow under constant heat flux , 2007 .

[2]  Fredrik Setterwall,et al.  Phase transition temperature ranges and storage density of paraffin wax phase change materials , 2004 .

[3]  Hideo Inaba,et al.  Numerical simulation of natural convection of latent heat phase-change-material microcapsulate slurry packed in a horizontal rectangular enclosure heated from below and cooled from above , 2007 .

[4]  H. G. Shen,et al.  Modeling solar-driven ejector refrigeration system offering air conditioning for office buildings , 2009 .

[5]  Charles P. Marsh,et al.  Characterization of supercooling suppression of microencapsulated phase change material by using DSC , 2006 .

[6]  M. Moawed,et al.  Experimental investigation of natural convection from vertical and horizontal helicoidal pipes in HVAC applications , 2005 .

[7]  Xiaoqiang Zhai,et al.  Design and performance of a solar-powered air-conditioning system in a green building , 2008 .

[8]  Y. R. Mayhew,et al.  Heat transfer and pressure loss in helically coiled tubes with turbulent flow , 1964 .

[9]  Somchai Wongwises,et al.  A review of flow and heat transfer characteristics in curved tubes , 2006 .

[10]  Jose M. Marin,et al.  Verification of a T-history installation to measure enthalpy versus temperature curves of phase change materials , 2006 .

[11]  H. Inaba,et al.  Natural convection heat transfer in enclosures with microemulsion phase change material slurry , 2004 .

[12]  Umberto Desideri,et al.  Solar-powered cooling systems: Technical and economic analysis on industrial refrigeration and air-conditioning applications , 2009 .

[13]  B. Roduit,et al.  Advanced kinetic tools for the evaluation of decomposition reactions , 2005 .

[14]  Fredrik Setterwall,et al.  Liquid–solid phase equilibrium study of tetradecane and hexadecane binary mixtures as phase change materials (PCMs) for comfort cooling storage , 2003 .

[15]  Rui Yang,et al.  Preparation, physical property and thermal physical property of phase change microcapsule slurry and phase change emulsion☆ , 2003 .

[16]  S. Medved,et al.  Influence of accuracy of thermal property data of a phase change material on the result of a numerical model of a packed bed latent heat storage with spheres , 2005 .

[17]  Xianxu Hu,et al.  Theoretical analysis of convective heat transfer enhancement of microencapsulated phase change material slurries , 2003 .

[18]  Chuanshan Dai,et al.  Numerical simulation of Rayleigh–Bénard convection in non-Newtonian phase-change-material slurries , 2003 .

[19]  Bogdan Diaconu,et al.  Numerical assessment of steam ejector efficiencies using CFD , 2009 .

[20]  M. Ali,et al.  Experimental investigation of natural convection from vertical helical coiled tubes , 1994 .

[21]  Bogdan Diaconu,et al.  Analysis of a solar-assisted ejector cooling system for air conditioning , 2009 .