Journal article
Solidification of additive-enhanced phase change materials in spherical enclosures with convective cooling
Applied thermal engineering, v 111, pp 134-142
25 Jan 2017
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Solidification of eicosane with and without nanoadditives is experimentally investigated in spherical enclosures subject to convective cooling in water and air. The effects of additive volume fraction and external convective cooling conditions (i.e., the heat transfer medium, subcooling, and flow velocity) on the solidification process are examined. The results are compared with a conduction-controlled thermal network model accounting for the enclosure and PCM resistances, as well as the convective subcooling. The experimentally determined solidification time is found to be consistently lower than the model prediction, likely due to asymmetric and dendritic solidification, as well as natural convection inside the enclosure and possible thermocouple position errors. A simple correlation is proposed to predict the solidification time of a phase change material (PCM) in a spherical enclosure subject to convective cooling based on the same enclosure subject to a constant temperature boundary. Results show that the solidification time decreases with the volume fraction of nanoadditives due to the improved PCM conductivity. In addition, the nanoadditives are found to be more effective for solidification in water than in air, due to the large air-side convective resistance that does not benefit from improving PCM conductivity. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Details
- Title
- Solidification of additive-enhanced phase change materials in spherical enclosures with convective cooling
- Creators
- Mikail Temirel - Drexel UniversityHan Hu - Drexel UniversityHamidreza Shabgard - Drexel UniversityPhilipp Boettcher - Drexel UniversityMatthew McCarthy - Drexel UniversityYing Sun - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Applied thermal engineering, v 111, pp 134-142
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 9
- Grant note
- 10002061 / Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 1357918 / National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000391897200015
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84994875748
- Other Identifier
- 991019168236304721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Energy & Fuels
- Engineering, Mechanical
- Mechanics
- Thermodynamics