Discharge of a composite metal foam/phase change material to air heat exchanger for a domestic thermal storage unit

Talebizadeh Sardari, Pouyan; Giddings, Donald; Grant, David; Gillott, Mark; Walker, Gavin S.

Abstract

This paper evaluates the discharging mechanism in a PCM (phase change material) to air heat exchanger for the purpose of space heating using a composite of copper foam and PCM. The composite system is modelled with both 2-D and 3-D computational fluid dynamics approach for different inlet air temperatures to consider the effect of room temperature using the thermal non-equilibrium model for the porous medium compared with the thermal equilibrium one. The results show the significant advantages of composite heat exchanger compared with a PCM only case. For the inlet air temperature of 22 °C, the composite unit is solidified in 43% shorter time with 73% higher heat retrieval rate compared with that for the PCM only. After 10 h, the temperature variation between the inlet and outlet of the air channels for latent heat storage heat exchanger system with the composite system is 41 °C and 34 °C for the inlet air temperatures of 0 °C and 22 °C, respectively, while it is 33 °C and 29 °C for the system with PCM only. This study show the possible usage of PCMs in the energy storage heaters by introducing metal foams which is not possible using PCM only alternatives.

Citation

Talebizadeh Sardari, P., Giddings, D., Grant, D., Gillott, M., & Walker, G. S. (2020). Discharge of a composite metal foam/phase change material to air heat exchanger for a domestic thermal storage unit. Renewable Energy, 148, 987-1001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2019.10.084

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 16, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Oct 21, 2019
• Publication Date: 2020-04
• Deposit Date: Mar 26, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 22, 2020
• Journal: Renewable Energy
• Print ISSN: 0960-1481
• Electronic ISSN: 1879-0682
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 148
• Pages: 987-1001
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2019.10.084
• Keywords: PCM-air heat exchanger; Latent heat storage; Composite metal foam/PCM; Phase change material; Porous media; Discharging
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3019919
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148119315757