Quantitative analysis on influencing factors for interface propagation-based thermal conductivity measurement method during solid-liquid transition

Abstract

The recently proposed interface propagation-based method has shown its advantages in obtaining the thermal conductivity of phase change materials during solid-liquid transition over conventional techniques. However, in previous investigation, the analysis on the measurement error was qualitative and only focused on the total effects on the measurement without decoupling the influencing factors. This paper discusses the effects of influencing factors on the measurement results for the interface propagation-based method. Numerical simulations were performed to explore the influencing factors, namely model simplification, subcooling and natural convection, along with their impact on the measurement process and corresponding measurement results. The numerical solutions were provided in terms of moving curves of the solid-liquid interface and the predicted values of thermal conductivity. Results indicated that the impact of simplified model was strongly dependent on Stefan number of the melting process. The degree of subcooling would lead to underestimated values for thermal conductivity prediction. The natural convection would intensify the heat transfer rate in the liquid region, thereby overestimating the obtained results of thermal conductivity. Correlations and experimental guidelines are provided. The relative errors are limited in ±1.5%, ±3%and ±2% corresponding to the impact of simplified model, subcooling and natural convection, respectively.

Keywords

phase change material / thermal conductivity measurement / influencing factor / interface propagation-based method / numerical simulation

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