Heat Transfer with Phase Change in a Multilayer Construction: Simulation versus Experiment

Tomasz Kułakowski, Michał Krempski-Smejda and Dariusz Heim
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Tomasz Kułakowski: Department of Fundamentals of Building, Warsaw University of Technology, al. Armii Ludowej 16, 00-637 Warsaw, Poland
Michał Krempski-Smejda: Department of Environmental Engineering, Lodz University of Technology, ul. Wolczanska 213, 90-924 Lodz, Poland
Dariusz Heim: Department of Environmental Engineering, Lodz University of Technology, ul. Wolczanska 213, 90-924 Lodz, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-17

Abstract: The latent heat storage in the layer of phase change material (PCM) exposed to dynamic changes in boundary temperature was investigated numerically and experimentally. The original numerical model of heat transfer with phase change using a mushy volume approach was proposed and validated. The main improvement in the proposed model in comparison to others is that the compaction of the mesh and longitude of the time step were chosen after analysis of its impact in the field of error. The model was tested in the case of thin layer structure of the triple glazing window with one cavity filled with phase change material paraffin RT18HC. The experimental validation was carried out in the climatic chamber under dynamic changes in external temperature (from 10 to 50 °C) in a daily cycle. The highest accuracy was obtained for space discretization of the control volume 1 mm thick (12 CV for 12 mm of PCM layer) and 5 min time step. The obtained RMSE values, although they cannot be directly compared because of the very different approaches to the simulations, show that the proposed algorithm is sufficiently accurate for the assessment of energy storage in the PCM window. Both the simulation and experiment proved that, under specific conditions, implementation of the PCM into the structure resulted in delaying the peak for around 4 h.

Keywords: moving mushy volume approach; effective heat capacity; PCM window; climatic chamber; heat storage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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