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Studying the solidification process of salt hydrates via X-ray computed tomography.

Number: 2318

Author(s) : GUARDA D., MARTINEZ-GARCIA J., FENK B., GWERDER D., STAMATIOU A., WORLITSCHEK J., MANCIN S., SCHUETZ P.

Summary

The research conducted on phase change materials (PCMs) for latent thermal energy storages (LTESs) is continuously growing in terms of publications, pointing out the importance of this topic. In fact, PCMs present many advantages that could help the energy transition and reduce CO2 emissions, by enhancing the performance of existing systems and better exploiting renewable energy. Therefore, it is of crucial interest to develop new and reliable methods to control LTES. Differently from sensible thermal energy storages, in LTESs the stored thermal energy is not proportional to the temperature. To really have an insight into the level of charge of these storages, it is important to know the liquid fraction, i.e., the amount of the liquid phase with respect to the whole amount of PCM. X-ray computed tomography (XCT) is a technology that allows to non-intrusively “look inside” the materials and, in the current study, it was used to analyze calcium chloride hexahydrate crystallization phenomenon. This transient process of calcium chloride hexahydrate was tracked with many XCT scans, one every 6 minutes, resulting in 3D image stacks that were processed to obtain the volumetric liquid fraction evolution over time. Repeatability tests were run to evaluate the reliability of the XCT technique and the volumetric liquid fraction data was used to validate a numerical model developed within ANSYS Fluent framework. XCT offers great opportunities to study the heat and mass transfer mechanisms underlying the main issues of phase change materials, like, for example, supercooling and salt hydrate segregation.

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  • Original title: Studying the solidification process of salt hydrates via X-ray computed tomography.
  • Record ID : 30033180
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: 2024 Purdue Conferences. 20th International Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Conference at Purdue.
  • Publication date: 2024/07/17

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