Thermal Performance of a PCM-Based Thermal Energy Storage with Metal Foam Enhancement

Xue Chen, Xiaolei Li, Xinlin Xia, Chuang Sun and Rongqiang Liu
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Xue Chen: School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, China
Xiaolei Li: School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, China
Xinlin Xia: School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, China
Chuang Sun: School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, China
Rongqiang Liu: School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, 92, West Dazhi Street, Harbin 150001, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-18

Abstract: The energy transport inside a phase change material (PCM) based thermal energy storage system using metal foam as an enhancement technique is investigated numerically. The paraffin is used as the PCM and water as the heat transfer fluid (HTF). The transient heat transfer during the charging and discharging processes is solved, based on the volume averaged conservation equations. The flow in PCM/foam and HTF/foam composites is modelled by the Forchheimer-extended Darcy equation, while the two-temperature model is employed to account for the local thermal non-equilibrium effect between the foam matrix and fluid phase. The results show that the overall performance is greatly improved by inserting metal foam in both HTF and PCM sides. A nearly 84.9% decrease in the time needed for the total process is found compared with the case of pure PCM, and 40% compared with the case of metal foam insert only in the PCM side. Foam porosity and HTF inlet temperature greatly affect the dynamic heat storage/release process.

Keywords: thermal energy storage; phase change material; metal foam; heat transfer enhancement (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: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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