A facile strategy for enhancement of heat storage rate in LHS units

Abstract

LHS units suffer from long melting periods, resulting in overestimated amounts of PCMs for specific heat storage rate as well as larger surface areas for heat transfer. In this paper, we propose a facile strategy for the enhancement of heat storage rate in LHS units, with the contribution of natural convection by the addition of materials with low melting temperatures. Morphology analysis and preliminary experiments are conducted and the validity of the strategy proposed is verified. The principle of natural convection contribution is concluded from the observation of curved boundary of solid PCMs in morphology analysis, after the addition of materials with low melting temperature. The melting period is shortened by 44.8 % and the heat storage amount is augmented due to the existence of added materials. The effects of the novel strategy on heat storage enhancement are more obvious in the case of container with smaller size. As in the experiments of a prototype of LHS units, the heat storage rate is augmented by 31.09 %. The strategy proposed in this paper offers a facile method for the design of LHS units with fast melting and heat storage augment.