Experimental and numerical analysis of refrigeration system integrated with pcm based thermal energy storage system

Abstract

The demand for refrigeration has been exponentially growing due to newlineimproved life standards and growing population. In developing countries like newlineIndia there is a rising demand for domestic refrigerators with the overall newlineenergy demand projected to increase from 13.2 TWh to 65.5 TWh by 2030, newlinewhich has considerably contributed to higher emissions. Therefore, the need newlinefor augmenting the energy efficiency of domestic refrigerators is important newlinetowards achieving sustainability. Among the various techniques used to newlineaugment the thermal performance of the domestic refrigerators, integrating newlinethermal energy storage to domestic refrigerators is considered to bring in newlinesignificant energy savings. The integration of thermal energy saving using newlinePCM can be done on both the condenser and evaporator side for heat transfer newlineaugmentation. In this present investigation, a domestic refrigerator was newlinedesigned and developed with PCM placed on the condenser and evaporator newlineside in order to study the thermal performance experimentally. newlineThe selection of appropriate PCM for the present study is based on the newlinesurface temperature of the condenser and freezer air temperature inside the newlinerefrigerator space measured during the operation of the domestic refrigerator. newlineConsidering the above, OM 46 - a paraffin based PCM was chosen on the newlinecondenser side and water based natural graphite enhanced composite PCM newline(CPCM) was selected on the evaporator side. The PCM on the condenser side newlinewas encapsulated in the annular region in the concentric tube mounted on the newlinewire and tube condenser. While, PCM on the evaporator side was filled in a newlinespherical container after the preparation of CPCM through the two-step newlinemethod. The major phase change properties of OM 46, De-Ionized water (DI) newlineand CPCM were determined through DSC analysis. The enthalpy of fusion newlinefor OM 46 and CPCM were measured to be 160 J g-1 and 319.3 J g-1, while newlinethe corresponding values during melting were absorbed to be 163.6 J g-1 and newline360.7 J g-1, respectively. Thermal performance characteristics of the p