Investigating the effect of external heat flux on the thermal behaviour of hybrid paraffin-air heat sink: A molecular dynamics approach

Abstract

One of today's concerns regarding energy storage units is the low rate of storage and release of thermal energy and, as a result, the efficiency loss in these units. Subsequently, different strategies are utilized to solve this concern, such as using phase change materials (PCMs) and nanostructures. The background is the low storage and release rate of thermal energy in energy storage units, which leads to efficiency loss. This issue concerns many applications, including energy storage in buildings, vehicles, and electronic devices. This study aims to investigate the effect of external heat flux (EHF) on the thermal efficiency of a specific heat sink by employing molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. After ensuring the simulated atomic structures are stable, EHF is applied to see how it affects the thermal behaviour of the combination. The obtained results show that by increasing the EHF applied to the prototype, the thermal behaviour of the structure improves. So, with the increase of EHF from 0.1 W/m2 to 0.5 W/m2, the heat flux and thermal conductivity (TC) increase from 212.27 W/m2 to 317.90 W/mK to 286.71 W/m2 and 340.03 W/mK. The findings significantly affect energy storage unit efficiency and can inform future research and development efforts.

Keywords

• Phase change material
• Heat flux
• Thermal performance
• Heat sink
• Molecular dynamics simulation