Thermal Performance of Microencapsulated Phase Change Material Slurry in a Coil Heat Exchanger

An experimental study has been carried out to investigate the convective heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of microencapsulated phase change material (MPCM) slurry in a coil heat exchanger (CHX). The thermal and fluid properties of the MPCM slurries were determined using a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and a rotating drum viscometer, respectively. The overall heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of slurries at 4.6% and 8.7% mass fractions were measured using an instrumented CHX. A friction factor correlation for MPCM slurry in the CHX has been developed in terms of Dean number and mass fraction of the MPCM. The effects of flow velocity and mass fraction of MPCM slurry on thermal performance have been analyzed by taking into account heat exchanger effectiveness and the performance efficiency coefficient (PEC). The experimental results showed that using MPCM slurry should improve the overall performance of a conventional CHX, even though the MPCM slurries are characterized by having high viscosity.