Division of Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment
School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering
School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering
Thesis Abstract
PCMs have always been viewed as a suitable candidate for off peak thermal storage, particularly for refrigeration systems, due to the high latent energy densities of these materials. However, due to the need to have them encapsulated within a container this density is reduced. Furthermore, PCMs have a low thermal conductivity which reduces the useful amount of energy which can be stored. To consider these factors, the true energy storage density of a PCM system was proposed and optimised in PCMs encapsulation. Research will focus on using a validated numerical model of the system; a parametric study will be undertaken to investigate the impact of the mass flow, gap between slabs and the slab thickness (for slab type), radius and the thickness of the encapsulation (for sphere type). These conventional models will be modified to optimise the design for getting a low cost and effective PCM model for refrigeration use.
