Improvement of discharge characteristics of latent heat thermal energy storage unit by using carbon fibers
Many phase change materials have unacceptably low thermal conductivities. Metal fins, metal honeycombs and metal matrices have been examined to enhance the thermal conductivity of the PCMs. This study proposed an enhancement technique using carbon fibers with high thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity of the carbon fibers prepared in this study is 220 W/(m{center_dot}K). Paraffin wax (0.26 W/(m{center_dot}K) in solid phase) and Na{sub 2}SO{sub 4}{center_dot}10H{sub 2}O-mixture (0.8 W/(m{center_dot}K) in solid phase) were selected as heat storage media. The fibers were uniformly mixed with th PCM encapsulated in a cylindrical capsule. The effective thermal conductivities of the fibers/PCM composites were measured. Figure A-1 shows the ratio of the effective thermal conductivity of the composite (k{sub c}) to the thermal conductivity of the phase change material (k{sub m}). The figure demonstrates that the fibers essentially enhance the thermal conductivities of paraffin. For paraffin, there is little dependence of the effective thermal conductivity on the fiber length (L{sub f}). Though the k{sub c}/k{sub m} for Na{sub 2}SO{sub 4}{center_dot}10H{sub 2}O-mixture is lower than that of the paraffin wax, 2% fibers increase the thermal conductivity of the PCM by a factor of about three. This value is almost identical to the thermal conductivity of ice (2.2 W/(m{center_dot}K)). The effect of the carbon fibers on discharge characteristics of a thermal energy storage system was investigated. Capsules containing a carbon fibers/paraffin composite are packed into a thermal energy storage unit. The inlet fluid temperature (T{sub in})and the outlet fluid temperature (T{sub out}) were measured during the discharge process. Figure A-2 shows a typical result of the experiments. Remarkable effect of the fibers is observed after the outlet temperature reaches the phase change temperature ({approx}60 C). That is, the period where the outlet temperature is maintained near the phase change temperature increases with increasing the volume fraction of the fibers. Carbon fibers might be more suitable for thermal conductivity promoters than metals because of low density and compatibility with many PCMs as well as high thermal conductivity.
- Research Organization:
- Kyushu Univ., Fukuoka (JP)
- OSTI ID:
- 20034215
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 5th ASME/JSME Thermal Engineering Joint Conference, San Diego, CA (US), 03/14/1999--03/19/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating system required: Windows i386(tm), i486(tm), Pentium (R) or Pentium Pro, MS Windows 3.1, 95, or NT 3.51, 8 MB RAM, MacIntosh and Power MacIntosh with a 68020 or greater processor, System software version 7.1, 3.5 MB RAM (5 MB for PowerMac) 6 MB available hard-disk space, Unix; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 5th ASME/JSME thermal engineering joint conference, [3600] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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