International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Studies on the effect of shape-stabilized PCM filled aluminum

honeycomb composite material on thermal control
Biao Xie a, Wen-long Cheng a,⇑, Zhi-ming Xu a,b
a
Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, PR China
b
DFH Satellite CO., Ltd., Beijing 100094, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A new kind of composite material combined the shape-stabilized phase change material with aluminum
Received 3 May 2015 honeycomb used in thermal control was prepared and investigated both theoretically and experimen-
Received in revised form 19 July 2015 tally. The shape-stabilized PCM prepared in this paper was experimentally validated to have stable phase
Accepted 23 July 2015
change temperature, latent heat and thermal conductivity after several cycles of melting and solidifica-
Available online 7 August 2015
tion. The metal honeycomb structure could enhance the thermal conductivity and structural strength of
organic PCM effectively with adding little weight to the system. The stress tolerance limit (STL) of the
Keywords:
composite material was measured and compared with that of the shape-stabilized PCM. The results
Form stabilized phase change material
Aluminum honeycomb
showed that the STL was promoted by 25.2%. A performance test experiment of the PCM thermal control
Thermal conductivity unit was accomplished and a numerical model was established for further study. The temperature vari-
Thermal control ations of the numerical model were in good agreement with the experimental data. Results showed that
the addition of aluminum honeycomb structure could make the temperature variation of the heating
source in a much smaller range, compared with the result that without aluminum honeycomb. The
shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum honeycomb composite material showed the best combination proper-
ties of heat transfer and mechanical behavior.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction phase change temperature, latent heat and good thermal conduc-
tion. At the same time, changes in the density of solid and liquid
Thermal control system is an important component to ensure phase cannot be too big considering the assembly problem. The
the normal operation of most application situation with high heat purpose of PCM thermal control analysis is to determine the mass
flux or high temperature. It can keep the temperature of the device and the size of PCM, as well as the cost of the thermal control sys-
in a required range, avoiding working failure in the harsh environ- tem and other factors, under a given task requirements. Paraffin
ment [1]. PCM is usually utilized as the carrier of solid–liquid phase change
Generally, thermal control technology can be concluded into device because of its good thermal performance and stable chem-
two categories, active thermal control and passive thermal control. ical properties [3–8]. The rover Mars Lander adopted dodecanoic
Passive thermal control is widely used because of its reliable oper- and n-hexadecane phase change device to suppress the tempera-
ation, long service life and low cost. It is mainly based on the geo- ture fluctuation of the battery in the thermal design [9]. CCD stereo
metric structure and thermal optical properties of the device, such camera of Chang’e-1 adopted PCM combined with heat pipe to
as thermal control coatings, multilayer thermal insulation system, restrain the effect of external heat flux on CCD stereo camera focal
heat pipe technology, and phase change material device, etc. [2]. plane temperature fluctuation [10]. However, the poor thermal
Phase change materials (PCMs) can store or release a large quantity conductivity of paraffin PCM reduced the utilization efficiency of
of heat in the phase change process as a kind of thermal storage PCM, restricting the development of this technology [11]. Cheng
materials. So the heat generated by the device at runtime can be et al. [12] used the expanded graphite as thermal enhancer to make
temporarily stored in the PCM, and then released through radiation a new kind of shape-stabilized PCM. The introduction of metal ele-
or other heat dissipation methods. The choice of PCM should be in ments, such as the metal fin structure [13,14], honeycomb struc-
good agreement with application background, such as the proper ture [3,15,16] and metal foams [17–21], extended heat transfer
area, thus enhancing the heat transfer ability. Some metal particle
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 551 63600305. filler and carbon materials were used as heat conduction enhancer
E-mail address: [email protected] (W.-l. Cheng). for their good thermal conductivity [22–25]. A new kind of cellular

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2015.07.108
0017-9310/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
136 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143

structure with uni-directional pores made of copper was produced hexagonal, diamond, rectangle, bubble type or circle according to
and investigated [26,27]. However, the adding weight of the ther- the plane projection. And the hexagonal honeycomb is most widely
mal control system is also the key problem of some situations, the used for its advantage of material saving, simple manufacture and
spacecraft launch costs up to $20,000 per kilogram [28]. So the high efficiency of structure. The structure of the hexagonal honey-
weight of heat transfer enhancement and energy storage density comb is shown in Fig. 2. The aluminum honeycomb used in this
need to be well balanced [29]. High porosity aluminum honey- paper was manufactured with stretching method for the thin alu-
comb plate was widely used for its low density and high thermal minum foil. The thickness of the wall is about 0.04 mm, and the
conductivity. A theoretical and numerical analysis of thermal con- edge length of the hole is about 5 mm. The thickness of the alu-
trol element with honeycomb–PCM by Pal and Joshi [3] indicated minum honeycomb plate is 20 mm.
the feasibility and reliability of this structure in spacecraft thermal The thermal conductivity of honeycomb–PCM structure is com-
control area. Kim et al. [16] theoretically studied the performance plicated to ascertain for its complex structure. As the heat flux is
of a thermal control element consist of high heat flux conditions on along the axial direction of the honeycomb hole, thermal conduc-
short duration and intermittent changes using the composite tivity in this direction is mainly investigated in this paper. The
structure of honeycomb board, PCM and heat pipe as thermal con- effective conductivity in other directions could be estimated using
trol element. Results showed that the maximum temperature the Maxwell relation [26]. The effective thermal conductivity keff
decreased and the minimum temperature increased due to PCM parallel to the pore directions can be considered as the arithmetic
and the HP effectively supported thermal energy transportation mean [30].
into and from PCM as expected. Therefore, high porosity metal
keff ¼ e  kPCM þ ð1  eÞ  kAluminum
honeycomb could improve the heat transfer performance of con-
ventional shape-stabilized PCM effectively with adding little Similarly, the effective density qeff and the effective capacity C eff
weight to the system. And the mechanical property of the compos- of the composite material can be calculated using
ite material can be enhanced for the structure character of the hon-
eycomb. However, such study has not mentioned in recent
qeff ¼ e  qPCM þ ð1  eÞ  qAluminum
researches.
This paper dealt with a PCM thermal control unit with an alu- ceff ¼ u  cPCM þ ð1  uÞ  cAluminum
minum honeycomb core filled with the shape-stabilized PCM. An where e is the porosity of the honeycomb and u is the mass fraction
apparent heat capacity method was adopted in this study to of the shape-stabilized PCM.
analyze the phase change problem. The thermal stability of As the difference of physical parameters between in solid state
prepared shape-stabilized PCM was experimentally analyzed. and in liquid state is relatively small [31], the value of density, heat
And the compressive mechanical property of aluminum capacity and thermal conductivity are considered the same in the
honeycomb/shape-stabilized PCM composite material was ana- solid state and liquid state, respectively. Phase change problem is
lyzed by the stress–strain curves. And thermal control effect of solved using the apparent heat capacity method [32]. This method
the composite material was theoretically and experimentally takes the latent heat of PCM as a big sensible heat capacity in a
studied. small temperature range, by which the phase change problem is
converted into nonlinear heat conduction problem of the whole
2. The theoretical model region:
   
@T @ @T @ @T
The schematic diagram of the thermal control device using PCM qceff ¼ kx;eff þ ky;eff
@t @x @x @y @y
is shown in Fig. 1. The control object and the PCM thermal control
unit are all mounted to the inner surface of the heat dissipation where k is the thermal conductivity, ceff stands for the effective
channel. And the mounting surfaces are coated with thermal specific eat capacity. To account for the latent heat related to the
grease to enhance the heat transfer. All the surfaces in the inner phase transition, ceff is viewed as a function of temperature:
side of the device are coated with thermal insulation material.
ceff ¼ c þ dðTÞ  DH
The main part of heat dissipation channel is an aluminum honey-
comb board embedded in three heat pipes. Therefore, the heat gen- where c is the specific heat capacity of PCM in solid or liquid state,
erated by the control object can be partly transferred to the PCM DH stands for the change in enthalpy in phase change process,
quickly, and the rest of it is lost to the outside environment Purlis [33] and Bonacina [34] proposed a smoothed variation of
through radiation or convection heat transfer. The heat stored in effective heat capacity with temperature, so here, dðTÞ is expressed
the PCM control unit can also be dissipated through the radiator as following.
or circulating water when the device stops working.
Incorporation of organic PCM in metal honeycomb expands the expððT  T m Þ2 =ðDTÞ2 Þ
dðTÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffi
contact surface area between the PCM and the metal, thus enhanc- DT p
ing the heat conduction performance of the thermal control ele-
ment. The shape of honeycomb core can be divided into

Thermal insulation
Heat material
Heating source
dissipation
channel
PCM+honeycomb

Radiation or convection heat transfer

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the PCM thermal control device. Fig. 2. The structure of hexagonal honeycomb.
 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143 137

where, T m is the phase change temperature, DT denotes the phase transition process cannot exceed the phase change temper-
half-width of the phase transition range. ature of HDPE, 109.95 °C.
The shape-stabilized PCM was made of paraffin, high density
polyethylene and expanded graphite. The physical properties of 3. Experimental systems
the paraffin used in the preparation was detailed described in
[12]. The physical properties of the shape-stabilized PCM used in 3.1. Experiment of thermal control performance
this paper were measured by differential scanning calorimeter
(DSC). The results are shown in Fig. 3. There are three main peaks The experimental system of thermal control performance con-
on the DSC curve. The first peak corresponds to the solid–solid sists of PCM module, heating source, insulation cavity and data
phase transition process of paraffin. The second peak represents acquisition part. The schematic diagram of the whole experimental
the solid–liquid phase change process of the paraffin. And the third apparatus is shown in Fig. 4. The bottom of the PCM module
one represents the phase transition process of high density poly- container is an aluminum plate, which is attached to an electric
ethylene (HDPE) composite in the shape-stabilized PCM. The heater made of nickel–chromium alloy heating wire and high tem-
HDPE must be kept in solid state for structure consideration. perature silicone rubber. Four epoxy resin boards are mounted
Therefore, in the simulation, there are two periods of phase change. around the aluminum edges to contain the PCM and fix the struc-
The first one takes place with the phase change temperature of ture. The insulation cavity is made of foam rubber with very low
23.15 °C and the latent heat of 18.91 J/g. The second one occurs thermal conductivity of 0.034 W/m K. An aluminum honeycomb
with the phase change temperature of 44.38 °C and the latent heat is set in the container. And a thin copper plate with good thermal
of 103.85 J/g. The first and second phase transitions are for the conductivity is covered on the top of the honeycomb, so the tem-
main purpose, they represent the latent heat of the material. The perature of the copper plate is representative of the average tem-
third phase transition is of the HDPE, which supports the structure perature of the top surface. T-type thermocouples are placed at
of the material. The temperature of the shape-stabilized PCM in the strategic positions of three layers shown in Fig. 5 to acquire the

Fig. 3. DSC thermo gram of shape-stabilized PCM.

Aluminum honeycomb+PCM Copper plate

Epoxy resin board

Heating plate Rubber insulation material

Aluminum plate

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of experimental apparatus.

138 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143

Thermocouples mixture of PCM, HDPE and expanded graphite were filled in a rect-
angular mold with the size of 90 mm * 90 mm * 23 mm. And the
Copper plate temperature of the mold was about 130 °C to keep the
shape-stabilized PCM in the melting state. Then the aluminum
Honeycomb+PCM was pressed into the mold slowly until all the pores were filled
with the shape-stabilized PCM. Then the composite material was
extruded and cooled to room temperature to discharge the remain-
Aluminum plate ing air in the material. At last, polishing off the excess
Heating plate
shape-stabilized PCM until the aluminum honeycomb exposed.
Fig. 5. The distributions and locations of thermocouples. The picture of the shape-stabilized PCM and composite material
is shown in Fig. 7. It could be seen that most of the holes were of
hexagonal shape, but some holes deformation occurred. During
temperature of each layer. The locations of thermocouples of each the fabrication, the pressurization and polishing tools might have
layer are the center point and the midpoint of the center point and uneven force on the surface, which could be avoided by more
a corner point. Precision of measuring instruments used in the sophisticated operation. But the mold size was fixed and the distri-
experiment are all of first-level error. The uncertainty of the ther- bution of the holes was relatively homogeneous, so the structural
mocouples is ±0.5 °C, and the temperature measurement uncer- effect had little impact on the overall performance. The sizes of
tainty caused by the data acquisition instrument is ±0.2 °C. the prepared shape-stabilized PCM and shape-stabilized
PCM/aluminum composite material were 86 mm * 86 mm * 20 mm
3.2. Experiment of thermal stability and 76 mm * 76 mm * 16 mm.
The shape-stabilized PCM will melt and solidify repeatedly
The experimental apparatus is shown in Fig. 6. It consists of many times in the thermal control application. The thermal phys-
thermostatic water bath, copper hot/cold plate and data acquisi- ical properties of the shape-stabilized PCM must keep stable after
tion system. The bottom surface of shape-stabilized PCM was close several cycles of melting and solidification for safety and reliability,
to the copper plate and the other surfaces were coated by heat such as phase change temperature, latent heat and thermal con-
insulation material. In the melting progress, the temperature of ductivity. In the thermal stability experiment, samples were
the water through the heat plate was 15 K higher than the phase heated and cooled for 300 cycles, and the thermal physical proper-
change temperature in order to make the shape-stabilized PCM ties were measured every 30 times.
melt completely. Similarly, the temperature of the water through The results of phase change temperature are shown in Fig. 8.
the cold plate was 15 K lower than the phase change temperature The average phase change temperature of shape-stabilized PCM
in order to make the shape-stabilized PCM solidify completely. with paraffin was 317.67 K. The maximum deviation was 0.88 K
The PCM was paraffin in the test. A sample of 15 mg was taken and the average error was 0.09%. Therefore, the phase change tem-
from the prepared material for DSC thermal physical property perature of the prepared shape-stabilized PCM showed good sta-
analysis. The heat treatment was the same on both the sample bility after many cycles of melting and solidification.
and the material. The phase change temperature and the latent The results of latent heat are shown in Fig. 9. The average latent
heat were measured by differential scanning calorimeter, and the heat of shape-stabilized PCM with paraffin was 128.76 kJ/kg. The
accuracy of the test was ±1%. The thermal conductivities was mea- maximum deviation was 4.49 kJ/kg and the average error was
sured by Quickline™-30 thermal properties analyzer, and the accu- 1.72%. Most of the measured latent heat kept close to the average
racy of the test was ±3%. value except for a few data. The measurement error might result
from the weight measurement of the sample by electronic balance
and the start point selection of the DSC curve in calculation of
4. Results and discussion latent heat. The overall experimental results were in the allowed
error range, so the latent heat of the prepared shape-stabilized
4.1. Thermal stability analysis PCM was considered to have a good thermal stability.
The results of thermal conductivity are shown in Fig. 10. The
The shape-stabilized PCM was made of paraffin PCM and high average thermal conductivity of shape-stabilized PCM with paraf-
density polyethylene with the expanded graphite as the fin was 1.01 W/m K and the average error was 1.56%. The error
thermal conductivity enhancer. The preparation method of mainly came from the heterogeneity of the prepared material
shape-stabilized PCM was detailed described in our previous and the probe position of the QuicklineTM-30 thermal properties
research [12]. The mass ratio of the PCM and the high density poly- analyzer. As there was no obvious increasing or decline trend of
ethylene was 80:20. The mass fraction of the expanded graphite the measured data with the increasing cycles of thermal treatment,
was 3%. The porosity of the aluminum honeycomb used in this the thermal conductivity of the prepared shape-stabilized PCM
paper was high to 0.989. After being stirred sufficiently, the was considered stable near the average value. Add it to all up,
the thermal physical properties of the shape-stabilized PCM kept
stable after many cycles of melting and solidification.
FSPCM
Insulation 4.2. The compressive mechanical property
Data
material acquisition
system
Copper PCM used in the thermal control application needs to have good
hot/cold plate thermal properties. In addition, the mechanical properties of the
material need to be strengthened in order to deal with the complex
demands, especially the compressive mechanical property when
Thermostatic comes to the assembly problem with large stress. The introduction
water bath of aluminum honeycomb improves heat transfer performance of
composite material significantly. Besides, the special structure of
Fig. 6. The experimental apparatus for thermal stability analysis. honeycomb board can enhance compressive ability along the pore
 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143 139

(a) shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum honeycomb (b) shape-stabilized PCM

Fig. 7. Pictures of shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum honeycomb composite material and shape-stabilized PCM.

340 shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum composite materials. The sizes

of Samples 1#, 2# and 3# were 20 mm  20 mm  20 mm,
30 mm  30 mm  20 mm and 40 mm  40 mm  20 mm, respec-
335 SSPCM with paraffin
tively. The sizes of Samples 4#, 5# and 6# were
phase transition point(K)

20 mm  20 mm  18 mm, 30 mm  30 mm  18 mm and
330 40 mm  40 mm  18 mm, respectively. And the results are shown
in Fig. 11.
325
It can be seen that the stress along the pore direction increased
with strain linearly when the strain is small. And all curves of
shape-stabilized PCM or composite materials samples showed fine
320 consistency, which indicated that the variation trend was not
affected by the cross-sectional area. Then an inflexion point
315 appeared in the curves. When the strain exceeded 0.1, stress of
shape-stabilized PCM increased rapidly with the increase of strain,
but there was no regularity in the stress change of composite
310 material. That was because great changes in structure of both the
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
shape-stabilized PCM and the composite material took place when
number of thermal cycles the strain is big, which was shown in Fig. 12. The middle of the
shape-stabilized PCM was in a drum shape for the extrusion from
Fig. 8. Thermal stability results of phase change temperature.
the bottom and the top surface, and cross section of
shape-stabilized PCM extended with the increase of strain. So the
direction in theory. The stress–strain curves along the pore direc- calculated stress shown in Fig. 11 was larger than the actual one.
tion were measured by MTS Criterion™ Model 43. Six different Aluminum honeycomb structure would collapse at the edges when
samples were measured for analysis. Samples 1#, 2# and 3# were the strain was over 0.1 (shown in Fig. 11), and the collapse was
shape-stabilized PCM and Samples 4#, 5# and 6# were irregular. So the variation trend of the stress–strain curves of the

240 2.0

220 1.8
SSPCM with paraffin
SSPCM with paraffin
thermal conductivity(W/mK)

200 1.6
latent heat(kJ/kg)

180 1.4

160 1.2

140 1.0

120 0.8

100 0.6

80 0.4
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
number of thermal cycles number of thermal cycles

Fig. 9. Thermal stability results of latent heat. Fig. 10. Thermal stability results of thermal conductivity.
140 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143

12 of the bottom and top surface continued to rise after the PCM was
#1,SSPCM completely melted. In the results of shape-stabilized PCM, the tem-
#2,SSPCM perature of the heating side increased very fast for the relatively
#3,SSPCM poor thermal conduction performance. The heat generated by the
9 #4,SSPCM+Al honeycomb electronic device could not be transferred to the PCM in time.
#5,SSPCM+Al honeycomb Therefore, the bottom temperature would be quite high at the
stress (MPa)

#6,SSPCM+Al honeycomb end of the phase change progress. Fig. 13(c) showed that the bot-
tom temperature was high to 383 K at 1350 s when the heat power
6
was 2370 W/m2, the temperature was higher than the phase
change temperature of the high density polyethylene (the compo-
nent of the shape-stabilized PCM for structure support). And the
3 experimental phenomenon validated the conclusion. The structure
of one corner of the shape-stabilized PCM became soft and melted.
It meant that the shape-stabilized PCM could not work anymore,
though the PCM was not melted completely. The temperature dif-
0 ference between the top surface and the bottom surface of the
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum honeycomb composite material
strain was quite smaller than that of the shape-stabilized PCM for the rel-
atively high thermal conductivity. It could also be seen from Fig. 14
Fig. 11. Stress–strain curves of different samples.
that there was a little deviation between the results of experiment
and simulation. It was cause by the thermal contact resistance
composite material was irregular when the strain was over 0.1. In between the aluminum honeycomb and the filled
consideration of the safety requirement, stress values correspond- shape-stabilized PCM. Thermocouples could not be attached to
ing to the inflection points of the stress–strain curves were consid- the surface closely. Therefore, the experimental bottom tempera-
ered as the values of stress tolerance limit (STL). The inflection ture was a little higher than the simulation result.
points appeared when the strain was 0.046. The average STLs of The relationship between the temperature of bottom and the
three different kinds of shape-stabilized PCM (1#, 2#, 3#) and heat flux was described in Fig. 15. The highest temperature of bot-
composite material (4#, 5#, 6#) were 3.81 MPa and 4.77 MPa tom surface of shape-stabilized PCM increased rapidly with the
respectively. The STL was promoted 25.2%. increase of heat flux. And when the heat flux was over
2100 W/m2, the HDPE component of the shape-stabilized PCM
4.3. Thermal control performance would melt before the PCM was fully utilized, which led a waste
of material. However, the addition of aluminum honeycomb could
The simulation results of the thermal control performance of solve the problem effectively, especially when the heat flux was
the PCM thermal control unit were verified by the experimental quite high. The temperature rise of the shape-stabilized PCM was
system. In the melting progress, the heating power was controlled 67.6 K with the heat flux from 700 W/m2 to 3000 W/m2; while
by adjusting the voltage of the heater. The voltage was 100 V, the temperature rise of the shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum
120 V and 140 V. And the corresponding heat fluxes were about honeycomb composite material was 17.8 K. It could make the
1210 W/m2, 1740 W/m2 and 2370 W/m2, respectively. All the sys- controlled object work in a safer temperature range.
tem was heated from the room temperature of about 18 °C until As the layout of the structure shown in Fig. 1, a simulation
the PCM completely melted. During this progress, the temperature example was used to test the effectiveness of the material in
data was acquired at intervals of 2 s. The temperature of each sur- an electronic device thermal control. The outside of the heat dis-
face was the mean value of the two points showed in Fig. 5. The top sipation channel was with the radiation heat transfer condition,
and bottom surface temperature of honeycomb were the most con- with the surface emissivity of 0.79. The ratio of heat dissipation
cerned to analyze the characteristics of the phase change progress. channel projection area and the PCM module projection area is
And the time-wise temperature variations of both simulation and considered to be 2. Four common cases were analyzed
experimental results were showed in Figs. 13 and 14. numerically.
It could be seen from Figs. 13 and 14 that the simulation results
CASE 1: The electronic device work continuously, when the
were in good agreement with the experimental results. In the
PCM melted completely, the heat stored in the PCM
melting progress, the bottom was heated to the phase transition
and generated by the electronic device were dissipated
temperature firstly, and then the top surface was into the phase
by the radiation heat transfer through the heat dissipa-
transition range. Then the system entered a relatively long dura-
tion channel.
tion of phase change endothermic progress. Both the temperature

Fig. 12. Structure changes of materials after the experiment.

 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143 141

375 CASE 4: The electronic device work intermittently, part of the

simulation results of bottom heat generated by the electronic device was stored in
simulation results of top
the PCM, and part of it was dissipated by the radiation
360 experimental results of bottom
experimental results of top heat transfer through the heat dissipation channel,
when the PCM melted completely, the electronic
345
temperature(K)

device stop working, the heat stored in the PCM was

dissipated by the radiation heat transfer.
330

360
315 simulation results of bottom
simulation results of top
345 experimental results of bottom
300
experimental results of top

temperature(K)
285 330
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
time (s)
(a) 1210W/m^2 315

400
simulation results of bottom
simulation results of top 300
380 experimental results of bottom
experimental results of top

360 285
temperature(K)

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

time (s)
340
(a) 1210W/m^2
360
320 simulation results of bottom
350 simulation results of top
experimental results of bottom
300
340
experimental results of top
temperature(K)

280
330
0 300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400 2700
time (s)
320
(b) 1740 W/m^2
400 310
simulation results of bottom
simulation results of top
380 experimental results of bottom 300
experimental results of top
290
360
temperature(K)

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
time (s)
340 (b) 1740 W/m^2
360
320 simulation results of bottom
simulation results of top
350
experimental results of bottom
300 experimental results of top
340
temperature(K)

280
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 330

time (s)
320
(c) 2370 W/m^2

Fig. 13. Time-wise temperature variations of shape-stabilized PCM with different 310
heat powers.
300
CASE 2: The electronic device work intermittently, when the PCM
melted completely, the electronic device stop working,
290
and the heat stored in the PCM was dissipated by the radi- 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
ation heat transfer through the heat dissipation channel. time (s)
CASE 3: The electronic device work continuously, part of the
(c) 2370 W/m^2
heat generated by the electronic device was stored in
the PCM, and part of it was dissipated by the radiation Fig. 14. Time-wise temperature variations of shape-stabilized PCM/aluminum
heat transfer through the heat dissipation channel. honeycomb composite material with different heat powers.
142 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143

340
420 composite material one cycle one cycle
SSPCM
highest temperature of bottom(K)

330

temperature of bottom(K)
400

320
380

310
360
limit of sructure stability
(phase change temperature CASE3
of HDPE) 300 CASE4
340

290

320
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
2
heat flux(W/m ) time (s)

Fig. 15. Relationship between the temperature of bottom and the heat flux. Fig. 17. Results of CASE 3 and CASE 4.

The results of CASE 1 and CASE 2 are shown in Fig. 16. In CASE 1,
the electronic device work continuously, and the PCM melted com- Generally, the addition of metal honeycomb structure can
pletely at about 2340 s, then the heat stored in the PCM and gen- enhance the heat transfer of the material, but it can also bring
erated by the electronic device were dissipated by the radiation adverse effect, such as the increase in weight and the extinction
heat transfer. After one cycle of 5710 s, when the radiation heat of latent heat. However, porosity of the aluminum honeycomb
transfer stopped, the temperature of the bottom rose quickly to a used in this paper is very large, so the adverse effects can be
high level. So this thermal control system could not work for long. ignored. There are four kinds of different combinations of the
In CASE 2, both the working of electronic device and the radiation phase change materials and the high porosity aluminum
heat transfer were intermittently, the heat stored in the PCM mod- honeycomb: (A) paraffin PCM; (B) shape-stabilized PCM; (C) paraf-
ule could be dissipated into the environment timely. The energy fin PCM + aluminum honeycomb; (D) shape-stabilized
storage capacity of the PCM was fully utilized. Therefore, this sys- PCM + aluminum honeycomb. Material (A) has the disadvantage
tem could run for many cycles. The results of CASE 3 and CASE 4 of low thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivities of materi-
are shown in Fig. 17. The cycle duration of CASE 3 and CASE 4 als (B) and (C) are enhanced, but there must be a fixed support
was much longer for the persistent radiation heat transfer com- frame in the application of using material (C) for the package con-
pared with CASE 1 and CASE 2. In CASE 3, both the working of elec- sideration. Compared with material (B), material (D) has a better
tronic device and the radiation heat transfer were continuously. thermal conduction performance and compressive mechanical
The radiation heat transfer increased with the increase of the bot- property. In summary, material (D) has the best performance of
tom temperature. Therefore, this system reached thermal equilib- thermal conduction, package and compressive mechanical prop-
rium after a long time, and the temperature of the bottom erty among the four different kinds of materials.
tended to be steady at last. The operation mode of CASE 4 was sim-
ilar with that of CASE 2, and this system could run for many cycles.
5. Conclusions
In summary, the thermal control system using the shape-stabilized
PCM/aluminum honeycomb could meet the demand of most appli-
The aluminum honeycomb was introduced to enhance the ther-
cation situations.
mal conductivity of a PCM thermal control unit. The thermal stabil-
ity and compressive mechanical property were experimentally
360 analyzed. The thermal control performance of the PCM thermal
one cycle control unit was studied theoretically and experimentally. And
one cycle
the conclusions can be drawn as follows:
345
temperature of bottom(K)

CASE1 (1) The thermal physical properties, phase change temperature,

CASE2 latent heat and thermal conductivity, of the shape-stabilized
330 PCM keep stable after several cycles of melting and solidifi-
cation for safety and reliability. The STL of the composite
material was promoted 25.2% compared with that of the
315 shape-stabilized PCM.
radiation (2) Thermal conductivity of the PCM–honeycomb composite
starts structure was enhanced to 2.08 W/m K. And the time-wise
300
temperature variations of numerical results at both top
and bottom sides were in good agreement with that of the
experimental results.
285
(3) The adoption of metal honeycomb structure could greatly
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000
reduce the highest temperature of the controlled objects,
time(s)
especially when the heat load was high. Thus it could make
Fig. 16. Results of CASE 1 and CASE 2. the electronic device work in a safe temperature range.
 B. Xie et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 91 (2015) 135–143 143

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