IJSRD - International Journal for Scientific Research & Development| Vol.

6, Issue 08, 2018 | ISSN (online): 2321-0613

Heat Transfer Enhancement of High Temperature Thermal Energy

Storage using Open Cell Metal Foam & Paraffin Wax
R. Siddhardha1 K. Sanatha2 M. Sumanth Sekhar3
1,2
Assistant Professor 3Student
1,2,3
Department of Mechanical Engineering
1,2,3
GVP College for Degree & PG Courses, School of Engineering, Visakhapatnam, India
Abstract— An energy storage system challenges Phase emulsion containing 10% paraffin wax, exceeding those of
Change material (PCM) to enhance the storage performance. water and pure paraffin wax by 11% and 23% respectively.
Since most of PCMs stands to relatively low thermal Studied the performance of a paraffin wax filled
conductivity, this in turn reduces the systems performance. In with aluminum metal foam, experimentally in a shell and tube
this study a compound metal foam/nano particles arrangement with different porosity (95% and 77%) and
enhancement technique was used to improve the charging and found good agreements with simulation results.
discharging ability of the paraffin wax. The influence of open
cell metal foam structure and nano particle volume fraction II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP & TEST PROCEDURES
on the instantaneous evolution of the solid-liquid interfaces,
distribution of temperature gradients in compound PCM were
investigated.
Key words: Heat Transfer, Thermal Energy, Cell Metal
Foam, Paraffin Wax

I. INTRODUCTION
Studied the effects of geometrical parameters like pore-size
and thickness of ligaments of the Paraffin- Graphite foam, to
enhance the thermal properties like thermal diffusivity and
the storage capacity and compared with pure paraffin wax by
Fig. 1: Schematic Diagram of the Experimental Setup, 1)
increasing the mass ratio.[2] Investigated the behavior of
Variac 2) Heating Element 3) Enclouser 4) Digital
pure-NaNO3 phase change material, PCM with copper metal
Temperature Indicator 5) Container 6) Thermocouples
foam and expanded graphite to enhance the heat transfer
capability in high temperature thermal energy storage Fig.1 shows a schematic diagram of the test section. A power
systems and found that heat transfer can be significantly variac with digital indicator is used to control and measure
enhanced by metal foams moderately by expanded graphite, the heat input, the enclosure made of synthetic fiber glass of
dimensions 400x400x400mm3. The heater was well insulated
thereby reducing the charging and discharging period.[3]
with over 30mm thick glass wool and 30mm thick asbestos
They investigated the melting process of paraffin wax with
fabric which provides sufficient thermal insulation to control
seven high porosity copper metal foam samples
experimentally and numerically. [4] They prepared stable the heat loss from the source to surroundings. Heating
Bio-based PCMs with xGnP, (Exfoliated graphite Nano element of 30mmx30mm was left on heat source without
insulation to provide constant heat input to the containers
platelets) by using the vacuum impregnation method to
filled with compound PCMs through the base plate.
enhance thermal performance.[5] The Energy storage
Experimentation consists of four models like pure
properties of the nano composite PCMs are characterized and
paraffin wax (PCM), Nano mixed PCM, Paraffin wax with
compared the performance of carbon nano fillers of various
sizes and shapes in enhancement of thermal conductivity of metal foam. Nano-PCM embedded with metal foam. In nano-
paraffin-based nano composite PCMs.[6] Experimentally PCM, Silver coated Copper Nano powder mixed with
paraffin wax by ultrasonic stirring process maintained at
investigated the melting and solidification processes in
constant heat input conditions in4%weight ratio. AnAl6101
Triplex Tube Heat Exchanger (TTHX) with internal and
open cell metal foam of 40ppihavingfrontal area
external fins at different mass flow rates of the PCM.[7]
Studied the effects of pore size and porosity by developing a 85×30mm2and thickness 12mm was attached 50mmAl
three dimensional finite element model, considering both the square base plate of thickness 4mm by braze welding.
Metal and PCM domains, and suggested an optimal pore size PCM properties vary with material purity and its
previous melting/solidification cycles. The volume change
and porosity.[8]Studied the heat transfer characteristics of the
during the melting process of phase change material is up to
copper foam ligament and paraffin wax. Found the
10%.Based on the volumetric expansion, the PCM container
evolvement of solid–liquid interface and temperature
variation during the melting process and compared with the was designed to 50mm square cross section and 100mm
numerical results by the two-temperature energy model.[9] height made with fiber glass. Base plates were attached to
containers bottom which ensures a perfect leak proof during
Investigated experimentally an appropriate concentration of
melting process.Fig.2 shows an arrangement of four
paraffin wax in paraffin wax–water nanoemulsions, and
containers filled with PCM compounds. Four probe
found that the energy stored per unit time per unit heat
thermocouples were placed between the heating element and
exchanger volume was the highest for paraffin wax–water
the base plate of the container to measure the average base
surface temperature(Tb). Four k-type thermocouples were

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 Heat Transfer Enhancement of High Temperature Thermal Energy Storage using Open Cell Metal Foam & Paraffin Wax
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 08/2018/099)

inserted in equal distances along the length of the container Properties of Silver coated Copper Nano powder
through the insulation, to measure the temperatures T 1, T2, T3, Physical Appearance Dry powder
and T4of the PCM during phase change process. Experiments Powder Mesh Size 325
were conducted at a 40W heat input. Temperatures were Morphology Dendritic
recorded in regular intervals during charging and discharging Tap Density 2.5-3.5 g/cc
processes. Color Tan, dark brown
Physical characteristics of paraffin wax (PCM) Silver content 10%
Melting temperature 48–54(°C) Table 2:
Specific heat capacity 2.4(kJ/kg °C)
Latent heat 195 (kJ/kg) A. Charging Process
Density 0.88 (g/cm3) Since base plates were attached to the containers, heated from
Table 1: the bottom surface, solid paraffin wax at the lower part of
containers will first absorb the heat from the base plate at the
initial stage of the heating process. Part of the input heat is
used to increase the temperature of base plate, and then
conducted upwards. All containers were well insulated with
asbestos fabric to minimize the convection heat transfer. A
heat gradient exists inside the PCMs, with highest
temperature being at the bottom and the lowest being at the
top. Obviously the heating process is a transient heat transfer
problem. The charging process in all four models depends on
the physical nature of the composition. The thermal
conductivity of the composition plays a vital role in charging
(a) (b) process. If the thermal conductivity is not sufficient, the heat
cannot be transferred to the top of the container quickly.
Since this is transient heat related, the temperature
difference between the base plate and different positions T 1-
T4 are used to compare the heat transfer performance for
different containers for a given input heat flux. Higher the
temperature difference lowers the heat transfer rate for a
given heat input. The temperature difference is defined as
∆Ti = Tb − Ti
Where subscript i represents1, 2, 3, and 4, the
temperatures of the compound PCM during phase change at
different positions along the length, from base plate to top of
(c) (d) the containers.
Fig. 2: Arrangement of the Containers. (a) Pure PCM, (b)
Nano-PCM, (c) PCM with Metal foam, (d) Nano-PCM with
Metal Foam

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS & DISCUSSION

In this study four separate charging processes are tested to
examine the heat transfer mechanism during transient phase
change phenomena in different PCM compounds. They are
(a) melting of pure paraffin wax (b) melting of PCM mixed
with Nano, (c) melting of PCM in metal foam, (d) melting of
nano-PCM embedded with metal foam. The discharging
process is that where paraffin wax is cooled from liquid phase Fig. 3: Paraffin Wax (PCM)
to solid phase without insulation by natural convection.
Properties of Al-6101 Metal Foam, 40PPI
Compression Strength 2.530 MPa
Tensile Strength 1.240 MPa
Shear Strength 1.310 MPa
ModulusElasticity (Compression) 103.08 MPa
Modulus of Elasticity (Tension) 101.84 MPa
Shear Modulus 199.95 MPa
Specific Heat 0.895 (J/g°C)
Bulk Thermal Conductivity 5.8 w/m°C
Melting Point 660 °C
Table 1: Fig. 4: Silver Coated Copper Nano Powder

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 Heat Transfer Enhancement of High Temperature Thermal Energy Storage using Open Cell Metal Foam & Paraffin Wax
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 08/2018/099)

Fig. 5: Al-6101 Metal Foam, 40PPI

(b)
Fig. 6: Temperature Comparison of T2 and T3 inside the
Container during Melting Process

Fig. 1 (A): Metal Foam inside the Container (B) Nano-PCM

inside the Container (C) Pure PCM during Solidification
The excellent structure of open cell metal foam has
a continuous material and high thermal conductivity struts to
conduct the heat across PCMs composites.in Fig. 6, the
temperatures of T2 and T3inside all the containers with
different PCM compounds were plotted. While melting pure (a)
PCM takes around 170 minutes to change into complete
liquid phase, the duration to phase transfer decreases with
respect to the composition embedded with PCM. It was
observed that nano-PCM mixed with metal foam accelerates
the melting process in 60 minutes.Fig.7 shows the curves of
temperature difference ∆T2 and ∆T3 inside the containers
during heating process, which indicates the temperature
difference of base plate to the respective locations in a
container. If the temperature difference is less means the
charging process was quick enough to melt all the PCM. It
was clear that the difference is almost same while melting
started. It was found that the temperature difference decreases
very rapidly in nano-PCM embedded with metal foam (b)
compare with other PCM compounds. Fig. 7: Temperature comparison of T 2 and T3 inside the
container during melting process
B. Discharging Process
In this investigation, the cooling circuit was no provided to
study discharging process test but a simple natural convection
cooling process is attempted without insulation. The
container loses its sensible and latent heat at a very low rate
for a long period of time. The test results are shown in Fig. 8,
Similar to the charging process metal foams can enhance the
discharging process. It is expected that the discharging
process can be further enhanced if forced convection (active
cooling) is employed.
(a)

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 Heat Transfer Enhancement of High Temperature Thermal Energy Storage using Open Cell Metal Foam & Paraffin Wax
(IJSRD/Vol. 6/Issue 08/2018/099)

[7] Sriharsha S. Sundarram, Wei Li, "The effect of pore size

and porosity on thermal management performance of
phase change material infiltrated microcellular metal
foams," Applied Thermal Engineering, vol. 64, pp. 147-
154, 2014.
[8] P. Zhang, Z.N. Meng, H. Zhu, Y.L. Wang, S.P. Peng,
"Melting heat transfer characteristics of a composite
phase change material fabricated by paraffin and metal
foam," Applied Energy, 2015.
[9] B. Sivapalan, M. Neelesh Chandran, S. Manikandan,
M.K. Saranprabhu, S. Pavithra, K.S. Rajan, "Paraffin
wax–water nanoemulsion: A superior thermal energy
storage medium providing higher rate of thermal energy
storage per unit heatexchanger volume than water and
paraffin wax," Energy Conversion and Management, vol.
Fig. 8: Temperature distribution of T 3 Inside all the 162, pp. 109-117, 2018.
Containers during Solidification Process [10] Aditya Atal, Yuping Wang, Mayur Harsha, Subrata
Sengupta, "Effect of porosity of conducting matrix on a
IV. CONCLUSIONS phase change energy storage device," International
Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 93, pp. 9-16,
In this paper the feasibility of using metal foams and nano-
2016.
PCM combinedly to enhance the heat transfer capability in
thermal energy storage systems is investigated. The results
show that heat transfer can be enhanced by the use of these
open cell metal foams, thereby reducing the temperature
difference among the PCM compounds, and the
charging/discharging periods can be dramatically shortened.
Metal foam structures and nano embedded with PCM can
significantly enhance the heat transfer in the solid region.

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