Effect of phase change material plates' arrangements on charging and discharging of energy storage in building air free cooling

Abstract

Previous examinations of building air free cooling using phase change material (PCM) plates were numerically conducted for specific arrangements/configurations of PCMs plates. Experimental investigation for models validations and comparison between the different configurations of PCMs are the shortages of these studies. The present research experimentally investigates the effects of the PCM plate's arrangements on the thermal characteristics of the charging and discharging processes. Parallel and staggered arrangements of different spaces between the plates were tested. The effect of plates' arrangements on the discharging time and quantity of PCM needed to fulfill the required free cooling are also investigated. The results showed that (a) in parallel arrangement, the discharge time decreases with decreasing spaces between PCM plates; (b) the discharge time in staggered arrangement is longer than that of parallel arrangement by 63%; (c) putting PCM plates on large numbers of rows increases the discharge time; (d) in staggered arrangement, the discharge time increases with decreasing spacing between PCMs plates; (e) the needed quantity of PCMs plates in staggered arrangement is lower than that of parallel arrangement by about 67%; and (f) generally, staggered arrangement with low spaces between PCMs plates is the optimum arrangement for air free cooling as it has the longest discharge time.

Energy Saving and Charging Discharging Characteristics of Multiple PCMs Subjected to Internal Air Flow

“…The vital features of phase change materials are the melting and solidification times as well as the latent heat of fusion. Therefore, the melting and solidification characteristics during the PCM charging and discharging process are investigated in many experimental and numerical research works [28][29][30][31][32]. Abduljalil et al [33] presented an experimental study of PCM melting and solidification in a finned triplex tube heat exchanger to examine the charging process under steady and unsteady conditions.…”

Experimental studies on space heating using phase change material

“…A transient numerical and experimental study is on heat transfer in a cavity filled with air involving one vertical wall with a PCM is presented by Monero et al 14 It was observed that use of the PCM decreased the heat transfer to the air resulting in better cooling. Recently, Nada et al 15 presented experimental investigation of the effects of the arrangement of PCM plates on the thermal characteristics of the charging and discharging processes to be used for building air cooling. It was observed that the quantity of PCMs plates needed in staggered arrangement is lower than that of parallel arrangement.…”