Analytical Model for Heat Transfer in a Finite Region of Organic Phase Change Materials

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe concept of low carbon, energy saving and sustainable design has been widely accepted all over the world. As a matter of fact, large amount energy is consumed to control the indoor environment to maintain a comfortable ambience for living and working. To increase the energy utilization efficiency, phase change material (PCM), which can store and release heat through phase change, has been recognized as an excellent candidate for green building. Analytical model is of great importance to describe and predict heat transfer with phase change. The classic Stefan problem solution is quite suitable for crystalline materials, which requires the input of certain phase change temperature. However, many PCMs widely used, like paraffin, are semi-crystalline materials, which have a much larger phase changing temperature range compared with small molecule crystalline materials. It is important to appropriately model the phase change of semi-crystalline polymers for the application of PCM. Furthermore, in large spatial scale prediction, widely used semi-infinite plane model is usually quite suitable to explain initial heat transfer. Unfortunately, semi-infinite plane is not the same as real situation. In this paper, by using the temperature at the end of the phase change as the equivalent melting temperature, a heat transfer model for semi-crystalline organic PCM is constructed. Meanwhile, this model concerns the phase change in a limited region. This model can serve as a fast tool to predict the one-dimensional heat transfer with phase change in an explicit form. The model is validated by the results of simulations and experiments reported in the literature.