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    Thermal Modeling Solid-Liquid Phase Change Materials (PCMs)
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    Abstract:
    Three thermal modeling methods for phase change materials (PCMs): enthalpy-based method, effective heat capacity method and apparent heat capacity method, are presented in details. Their characteristics and application limitations are compared and discussed. We found that enthalpy-based method and effective heat capacity method are both approximation treatments, and can be well used in steady state problems, while apparent heat capacity method tracks the moving phase change boundary in PCMs, and it is the most accurate and applicable method of the three for dealing with transient processes. This work might provide useful information for the study of using PCMs in temperature control field, especially in aircraft environmental temperature control and thermal management.
    Keywords:
    Transient (computer programming)
    Phase boundary
    This chapter contains section titled: Internal Energy, U and the Enthalpy Function, H; qp & qv General Heat Capacity, C and Heat Capacity at Constant Pressure Cp and at Constant Volume, Cv Methods of Calculating δ H Use of Heat Capacity for the Calculation of Enthalpy Change, δ H Use of Heat Capacity for Entropy Change, δ S Calculations
    Internal energy
    Constant (computer programming)
    Sigma heat
    Heat capacity ratio
    Specific heat
    The present work analyses the effect of radial thermal gradients inside T-history samples on the enthalpy temperature curve measurement. A conduction heat transfer model has been utilized for this purpose. Some expressions have been obtained that relate the main dimensionless numbers of the experiments with the deviations in specific heat capacity, phase change enthalpy and phase change temperature estimations. Although these relations can only be strictly applied to solid materials (e.g. measurements of shape stabilized phase change materials), they can provide some useful and conservative bounds for the deviations of the T-history method. Biot numbers emerge as the most relevant dimensionless parameters in the accuracy of the specific heat capacity and phase change enthalpy estimation whereas this model predicts a negligible influence of the temperature levels used for the experiments or the Stefan number.
    Biot number
    Dimensionless quantity
    Fourier number
    Volumetric heat capacity