Applicability of Infrared Thermography for the Detection of Phase Transitions in Metal Alloys

Clément Mailhé,Alexandre Godin,Amélie Veillère,Marie Duquesne

doi:10.3390/app11198885

Abstract

This work aims at assessing the applicability of a screening-oriented device dedicated to the establishment of increasingly complex phase diagrams of phase change materials. A thermography-based method has recently been proven to allow the detection of phase transitions of organic materials for multiple samples at a time. The phase transition detection capability of the infrared thermography method is here evaluated for metal systems based on well-referenced materials commonly employed in DSC calibration (pure sample of Gallium and a mixture of Gallium and Indium). The detected transitions are compared to literature data and DSC measurements. All transitions documented in the literature could be retrieved by thermography, and liquidus transitions are validated with DSC measurements. The encouraging nature of the results is discussed, and avenues for improving the method are considered.

Highlights

In the frame of energy transition, thermal energy storage (TES) is recognized as one of the key elements to optimize the use of available energy resources, especially renewable ones which are intermittent by nature
For the infrared thermography (IRT) method, the abrupt variations that could be associated with phase transitions are highlighted by blue dashed lines and an etiquette indicating the corresponding temperature
The IRT method has been applied for the phase transition detection of metals for the first time

Summary

Introduction

In the frame of energy transition, thermal energy storage (TES) is recognized as one of the key elements to optimize the use of available energy resources, especially renewable ones which are intermittent by nature. While PCMs are already used for TES from waste heat and solar energy [1], they could benefit from numerous applications at low to medium temperatures (−10 ◦ C to 200 ◦ C) such as thermal comfort in buildings, transport, textile, cooling in electronics, waste heat recovery in industrial processes, etc. To reach this goal, it is necessary to design advanced PCMs with enhanced performance/cost ratio. The originality of our approach lies in the use of thermal imaging techniques for the study of phase equilibria and melting/crystallization phenomena of multi-component systems

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion