This paper describes the experimental studies carried out to test thermal cycling of a real-scale PCM–air heat exchanger at ambient temperatures. To achieve this goal an experimental setup previously designed and used for testing real-scale prototypes of PCM–air heat exchangers is modified....

In a recent meeting of IEA's Annex 23, several members presented their conclusions on the modeling of phase change materials behavior in the context of building applications. These conclusions were in agreement with those of a vast review, involving the survey of more than 250 journal papers,...

The transient thermal analysis of a natural convection solar air heater is presented. The heater consists of a single-glazed flat plate solar collector integrated with a paraffin type phase change material (PCM) energy storage subsystem and a rectangular enclosure which serves as the working...

Thermal energy storage systems which keep warm and cold water separated by means of gravitational stratification have been found to be attractive in low and medium temperature thermal storage applications due to their simplicity and low cost. This effect is known as thermal stratification, and...

Microcapsules containing n-octadecane with different methylmethacrylate (MMA (methyl methacrylate))-based copolymer shells were fabricated by a suspension-like polymerization. Butyl acrylate (BA), butyl methacrylate (BMA), lauryl methacrylate (LMA) and stearyl methacrylate (SMA) were employed as...

PA/GO (palmitic acid/graphene oxide) as PCMs (phase change materials) prepared by vacuum impregnation method, have high thermal conductivity. The GO (graphene oxide) composite was used as supporting material to improve thermal conductivity and shape stabilization of composite PCM (phase change...

Numerical simulations using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS Fluent were undertaken to characterize the airflow and temperature distribution in a natural convection thermal energy storage refrigerator. The model compared the household refrigerator temperature stability with...

The current numerical study is conducted to analyze melting in a rectangular closed enclosure by subjecting the bottom wavy surface to a uniform temperature. The cavity vertical walls and the top wall are insulated while the bottom wall is maintained at temperature TB = 38.3 °C. The...

Transient three-dimensional heat transfer numerical simulations were conducted to investigate a hybrid PCM (phase change materials) based multi-fin heat sink. Numerical computation was conducted with different amounts of fins (0 fin, 3 fins and 6 fins), various heating power level (2 W, 3 W...

PCMs (Phase change materials) are used to enhance the thermal storage capacity of building walls, decrease indoor air temperature fluctuations, and shift peak heat transfer rates to off-peak times. PCM location within building walls is recognized to be critical for the optimum performance of the...