Phase Change Materials-Assisted Heat Flux Reduction: Experiment and Numerical Analysis

Energies

Hussein J. Akeiber¹  Seyed Ehsan Hosseini¹  Mazlan A. Wahid¹  Hasanen M. Hussen²  Abdulrahman Th. Mohammad³ 

[1] High-Speed Reacting Flow Laboratory, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor 81310, Malaysia;Machine and Mechanical Department, University of Technology, Baghdad 35023, Iraq;Baqubah Technical Institute, Middle Technical University, Baghdad 06800, Iraq;

关键词: phase change material (PCM);    wax;    melting temperature;    heat flux;   

DOI  :  10.3390/en9010030

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Phase change materials (PCM) in the construction industry became attractive because of several interesting attributes, such as thermo-physical parameters, open air atmospheric condition usage, cost and the duty structure requirement. Thermal performance optimization of PCMs in terms of proficient storage of a large amount of heat or cold in a finite volume remains a challenging task. Implementation of PCMs in buildings to achieve thermal comfort for a specific climatic condition in Iraq is our main focus. From this standpoint, the present paper reports the experimental and numerical results on the lowering of heat flux inside a residential building using PCM, which is composed of oil (40%) and wax (60%). This PCM (paraffin), being plentiful and cost-effective, is extracted locally from waste petroleum products in Iraq. Experiments are performed with two rooms of identical internal dimensions in the presence and absence of PCM. A two-dimensional numerical transient heat transfer model is developed and solved using the finite difference method. A relatively simple geometry is chosen to initially verify the numerical solution procedure by incorporating in the computer program two-dimensional elliptic flows. It is demonstrated that the heat flux inside the room containing PCM is remarkably lower than the one devoid of PCM.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.