Research Paper
Year: 2020 | Month: March | Volume: 7 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 495-500
Performance Analysis of Palmitic Acid Coated PCM Storage Container
N. Sathishkumar1, V. Ashok Kumar2, M. Gokulnath3, G. Kalai Raj4
1,2Assistant Professor, 3,4UG Scholar,
1,2,3Department of Mechanical Engineering, St. Joseph’s College of Engineering, Chennai 600 119, Tamilnadu, India.
4Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chennai Institute of Technology, Chennai 600 069, Tamil Nadu, India.
Corresponding Author: N. Sathishkumar
ABSTRACT
The phase change material is considered as the best source of latent heat energy storage units. The usages of phase change material for advanced engineering applications are increased significantly. The major application of the phase change material is food storage containers. The capability of storing heat energy would help the stored food container to withstand sufficient temperature for a reasonable extended time. The organic and inorganic pcm’s are experimented by many researchers to unleash the maximum thermal efficiency available with it. In this study organic pcm called palmitic acid is selected for the experimentation. A closed insulation chamber of soft wood coated with mica sheet is fabricated. The aluminium container is placed inside the insulation chamber and connected with a polyurethane coated heating coil arrangement. The experiments are performed with the pure distilled water and high salt water to observe the difference in time period of the latent heat energy storage capability. The experiments are also repeated with and without pcm in between the insulation box and the container. The software called ANSYS fluent is used to simulate the real heat transfer between the container and box. The performance of the experimental setup with and without the pcm material are compared. The results indicate that comparing to high salt water content distilled water exposed improved heat energy storage performance. The overall thermal efficiency is improved for the container with palmitic acid pcm for almost upto 25% when comparing to the setup without pcm.
Keywords: Phase Change Material; Palmitic Acid; Softwood Insulation Chamber; Aluminium Container; Latent Heat Energy Storage; Pure Distilled Water; High Salt Water.
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