Phase Change Material for Spacecraft Thermal Management
Abstract
Heat transfer problems involving phase change are encountered extensively in technical and natural processes. Latent heat storage, which possess the advantages of high density of energy and isothermal behavior during charging and discharging, is one application of using phase change material (PCM). A computational model is presented for the prediction of the heat transfer between a heat transfer fluid (HTF) and PCM of latent heat storage unit. Two models of flow, hydrodynamically fully developed flow and developing flow, of the HTF were proposed in this study. A two-dimensional enthalpy method was used for the computation of the phase change heat transfer in the PCM. A fully implicit finite difference scheme was used for the calculation of convective heat transfer in the HTF. The unknown time dependent boundary condition between the HTF and the PCM was found iteratively. The predictions are substantiated by their fair agreement with experimental data. Factors which affect the heat transfer rates between the HTF and the PCM were studied numerically for both hydrodynamically fully developed flow and developing flow. It is found that the Nusselt number is significantly increased by the developing temperature profiles. Keywords: Thermal storage; Spacecraft thermal control.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA211404
Entities
People
- Chen Wen
- J. W. Sheffield