Thermomechanical Development And Characterization

Of A Composite Material: Phase Change Materials

Based Reinforced By Nanoparticles

Noura THMAINI*, Afef JEMNI, Habib SAMMOUDA

Laboratoire d’Energie et de Matériaux (LR11ES34)

Université de Sousse, ESSTHSousse, Rue Abbassi Lamine, 4011 HSousse, Tunisia.
*thmaininoura@gmail.com

Abstract_

Nanofluid is a new kind of fluid suspension consisting of uniformly dispersed and suspended
nanometer-sized (<100nm) particles in base fluid (PCM). These fluid composites have
attracted much attention since anomalously thermal properties were reported during the last
decade, especially in the energy storage domain, photovoltaic cells....

Thermal characterisation and Melting front of the phase change materials with nanoparticles
suspensions, in a square enclosure, were studied numerically with the ALE method. The
container is subjected to a constant heat flux on one side, while the other sides are thermally
insulated.

The results exhibited a good agreement with the work of the other authors. The numerical
results indicate that the nanoparticles loading has a positive effect on raising the thermal
conductivity of the nanofluid composite, decreasing the temperature of the composite and
augmenting heat transfer rate which results in decreasing the charging time.

Development of the melting interface and melt fraction volume are improved with the
increasing of the nanoparticles concentration and size. Caution should be taken for higher
values of nanoparticles concentration and size, due to effects of increasing viscosity and
possibility of agglomeration and precipitation.

The effect of natural convection is pronounced in the upper part of the cell, while the lower
region is characterized by conduction-dominated heat transfer. This effect intensifies with the
increase of the supplied heat flux (raising the value of the Rayleigh number) which causes
expediting of the melting process.

It is true that the addition of Al2O3, CuO, TiO2, SiO2 and CNT nanoparticles in the pure
phase change material increases its thermal conductivity and thus improves conduction heat
transfer in the nanofluids compared to conduction heat transfer in the base fluid, particularly
the case of nanofluids with carbon nanotubes. This nanofluid is characterized by a much
greater increase in its thermal conductivity compared to all other nanofluids with metallic
nanoparticles.

Keywords_ Nanoparticles, Phase Change Materials (PCM), Thermomechanical

characterization , Nanofluid composite, Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE).