Experimental analysis for the transient temperature profiles of a fiber-enhanced polyalcohol binary system

Abstract

Polyalcohol has poor heat conduction performance. A fiber-enhanced polyalcohol binary system tightly combines polyalcohol with a copper fiber net to improve its heat conduction performance. Compared to a polyalcohol binary system PE/TRIS without fibers, the fiber-enhanced polyalcohol PE/TRIS system shows quicker response to the external energy input. In the binary system without fibers, more input heat goes to increase the temperatures of points which are closer to the container wall. In the fiber-enhanced polyalcohol binary system, clear phase change and the resulted isothermal stage are seen for points which are close to fibers although temperatures of points which are far away from fibers rise quickly. It is because the porous structure of fibers with pore size at about 100–300 μm can increase the equilibrium pressure and as a result, points which are closer to fibers are easier to take place phase change. Furthermore, phase change driving force is larger for points which are closer to fibers since their phase change temperatures are lower.