Laminar forced convection heat transfer in microcapsulated phase change material suspensions

Abstract

An experimental study using a suspension of n-eicosane microcapsules in water was conducted in order to evaluate the heat transfer characteristics of phase change material suspensions. Experiments were done for laminar, hydrodynamically fully developed flows in a circular duct with a constant wall heat flux. The temperature of the suspension entering the test section was maintained at or below the melting point of the phase change material. The primary parameters in the study were the bulk Stefan number and the volumetric concentration. In addition, a few experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of particle diameter and degree of homogeneity of the suspension. The heat fluxes chosen for the experiments were typical of low temperature applications (below 60[deg]C). Results show that use of phase change material suspensions can reduce the rise in wall temperature by up to 50% as compared to a single phase fluid for the same non-dimensional parameters. The most dominant parameter influencing the heat transfer was found to be the bulk Stefan number. The effect of concentration was found to be insignificant by itself, though its influence is felt indirectly through the bulk Stefan number. An increase in particle diameter by a factor of 2.5 was found to further reduce the wall temperature rise by 15%. The degree of homogeneity of the suspension had no observable effect on the wall temperatures.