Heat transfer characteristics of thermal energy storage for PCM (phase change material) melting in horizontal tube: Numerical and experimental investigations

Moussa Aadmi, Mustapha Karkri and Mimoun El Hammouti

Energy, 2015, vol. 85, issue C, 339-352

Abstract: This paper focuses on the experimental and numerical study of the storage and release of thermal heat during melting and solidification of PCM (phase change material). Heat transfer enhancement techniques such as the use of conductors like graphite and metal tubes have been proven to be effective. The material used for thermal energy storage systems is a composite based on epoxy resin loaded with metal hollow tubes filled with paraffin wax. Differential Scanning Calorimetry has been used for measurement of melting enthalpy and determination of heat capacity. The thermophysical properties of the prepared composite phase change material have been characterized using a new transient hot plate apparatus. The results have shown that most important thermal properties of these composites at the solid and liquid states are the ‘‘apparent’’ thermal conductivity, the heat storage capacity and the latent heat of fusion. These experimental results have been simulated using numerical Comsol® Multiphysics 4.3 based models with success. The results of the experimental investigation are compared favorably with the numerical results and thus serve to validate the numerical approach.

Keywords: Phase change materials; Thermal energy storage; Paraffin wax; Thermal conductivity; Specific heat; Numerical simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544215003941
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:85:y:2015:i:c:p:339-352

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2015.03.085

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().