Latent heat storage has proved to be an effective means for thermal management for spacecraft due to its high storage capacity and small temperature variation from storage to retrieval. Although paraffin waxes offer an excellent source of thermal storage, the typically low thermal conductivity presents a significant challenge in the design of thermal management systems. The good physical and chemical properties of graphite and silicon carbide foam reveal the possibility of using them as a thermal conductivity enhancer for the phase change materials. A graphite or silicon carbide foam composite phase change material has a high effective conductivity and becomes one of the most interesting thermal storage techniques due to its advantage of simplicity and reliability. To simulate the heat transfer of silicon carbide and graphite foam composite phase change material, a finite volume technique is used to discretize the heat diffusion equation, and the two-temperature model is employed for the small-scale material, whereas the equivalent specific heat method is used for the large-scale material. The experimental setup is built up, and heat transfer experiments are performed to validate the proposed numerical method. Studies on the effects of the porosity on the equivalent thermal conductivity and the effects of the microstructure on the equivalent thermal conductivity are based on the numerical method.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Heat Transfer Performance Study of Composite Phase Change Materials for Thermal Management


    Contributors:
    Yanxia, Du (author) / Guangming, Xiao (author) / Lei, Liu (author) / Dong, Wei (author) / Xiaofeng, Yang (author) / Yewei, Gui (author)

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2018-02-28


    Size :

    8 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English