Transient Heat Storage Characteristics on Horizontal Rectangular Enclosures Filled with Fluidity Slurry of Micro-encapsulated Phase-change-material Dispersed in Water

Abstract

A two-dimensional numerical simulation of heat storage behavior by natural convection in rectangular enclosures heated from below has been conducted with fluidity slurry composed of micro-encapsulated fine phase-change-material (PCM) and water. Both heat storage and heat transfer characteristics were discussed with micro-encapsulated PCM slurry, which exhibited the pseudoplastic non-Newtonian fluid behavior and a peak value in the specific heat capacity with latent heat in phase temperature range. This paper also compared their characteristics between the same microcapsule slurries with and without phase change of PCM, and its superior performance for heat storage to the PCM microcapsule slurry in the phase-change temperature range was clarified. The effects of the heating wall temperature TH, the PCM mass concentration Cm of the slurry and the height H of the enclosure on heat storage were revealed, respectively.

Keywords

• latent heat storage
• phase-change-material microcapsule slurry
• non-newtonian fluid
• rectangular enclosure
• numerical simulation