Defrosting in the refrigeration industry is used to remove the frost layer accumulated on the evaporators after a period of running time. It is one way to improve the energy efficiency of refrigeration systems. There are many studies about the defrosting process but none of them use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The purpose of this thesis is (1) to develop a defrost model using the commercial CFD solver FLUENT to simulate numerically the melting of frost coupled with the heat and mass transfer taking place during defrosting, and (2) to investigate the thermal response of the evaporator and the defrost time for different hot gas temperatures and frost densities. A 3D geometry of a finned tube evaporator is developed and meshed using Gambit 2.4.6, while numerical computations were conducted using FLUENT 12.1. The solidification and melting model is used to simulate the melting of frost and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model is used to render the surface between the frost and melted frost during defrosting. A user-defined-function in C programming language was written to model the frost evaporation and sublimation taking place on the free surface between frost and air. The model was run under different hot gas temperatures and frost densities and the results were analyzed to show the effects of these parameters on defrosting time, input energy and stored energy in the metal mass of the evaporator. The analyses demonstrate that an optimal hot gas temperature can be identified so that the defrosting process takes place at the shortest possible melting time and with the lowest possible input energy.

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[pt] Um dispositivo experimental foi desenvolvido para investigar o desempenho térmico de um sistema de armazenamento de frio que utiliza água como material com mudança de fase (MMF) em esferas rígidas e contém um elemento interno para responder às variações da massa específica do MMF durante o processo. A maioria das experiências de dispositivos de armazenamento térmico em capsulas tem uma variação em suas dimensões externas devido à expansão ou contração é interiormente absorvida, a forma externa permanece invariável e podem ser evitados problemas de variação de volume e acomodação das capsulas em tanques de armazenamento. Neste trabalho são investigados os sistemas encapsulados esféricos com elemento interno (diafragma) que absorve a variação de volume para manter constante o diâmetro externo.A esfera é esfriada por um fluxo externo de Mistura Álcool-Água controlado por um banho de temperatura constante. Foram investigadas várias situações para temperaturas diferentes e regimes de fluxo. São monitorados o campo de temperatura, a posição de interface e a transferência de calor dentro das esferas. Implementou-se um modelo numérico para a avaliação dos resultados experimentais. O programa dói preparado na linguagem de programação Fortran e as comparações foram feitas no campo de temperaturas, frente de solidificação, e energia removida. A vantagem ou desvantagem de cada caso são apresentadas. / [en] An experimental apparatus was developed to investigate the thermal performance of a cold storage system utilizing rigid spheres containing an internal element to account for dilatation or contraction of the material during the change of phase. Most of the encapsulated thermal storage devices experiments a variation in its external dimensions due to the expansion or contraction that appear in the freezing or melting processes. If the expansion or contraction is absorbed internally, the external shape remain invariable and accommodation problems in storage tanks can be avoided. In spherical encapsulated systems, the internal element absorbs the volume variation in order to maintain constant the outside diameter. To develop the absorber, different sizes of spheres were investigated, as well, different shapes of absorbers. The sphere is cooled or heated by an external flow controlled by a constant temperature bath. Several situations were investigated for different temperatures and flow regimes. During the changing of phase, the temperature field, the interface position and the convection

Future defense, aerospace and automotive technologies involve electronic systems that release high pulsed waste heat like during high power microwave and laser diode applications in tactical and combat aircraft, and electrical and electronic systems in hybrid electric vehicles, which will require the development of an efficient thermal management system. A key design issue is the need for fast charging so as not to overheat the key components. The goal of this work is to study the fabrication and technology implementation feasibility of a novel high energy storage, high heat flux passive heat sink. Key focus is to verify by theory and experiments, the practicability of using phase change materials as a temporary storage of waste heat for heat sink applications. The reason for storing the high heat fluxes temporarily is to be able to reject the heat at the average level when the heat source is off. Accordingly, a concept of a dual latent heat sink intended for moderate to low thermal duty cycle electronic heat sink applications is presented. This heat sink design combines the features of a vapor chamber with rapid thermal energy storage employing graphite foam inside the heat storage facility along with phase change materials and is attractive owing to its passive operation unlike some of the current thermal management techniques for cooling of electronics employing forced air circulation or external heat exchangers. In addition to the concept, end-application dependent criteria to select an optimized design for this dual latent heat sink are presented. A thermal resistance concept based design tool/model has been developed to analyze and optimize the design for experiments. The model showed that it is possible to have a dual latent heat sink design capable of handling 7 MJ of thermal load at a heat flux of 500 W/cm2 (over an area of 100 cm2) with a volume of 0.072 m3 and weighing about 57.5 kg. It was also found that with such high heat flux absorption capability, the proposed conceptual design could have a vapor-to-condenser temperature difference of less than 10 0C with a volume storage density of 97 MJ/m3 and a mass storage density of 0.122 MJ/kg. The effectiveness of this heat sink depends on the rapidness of the heat storage facility in the design during the pulse heat generation period of the duty cycle. Heat storage in this heat sink involves transient simultaneous laminar film condensation of vapor and melting of an encapsulated phase change material in graphite foam. Therefore, this conjugate heat transfer problem including the wall inertia effect is numerically analyzed and the effectiveness of the heat storage mechanism of the heat sink is verified. An effective heat capacity formulation is employed for modeling the phase change problem and is solved using finite element method. The results of the developed model showed that the concept is effective in preventing undue temperature rise of the heat source. Experiments are performed to investigate the fabrication and implementation feasibility and heat transfer performance for validating the objectives of the design i.e., to show that the VCTES heat sink is practicable and using PCM helps in arresting the vapor temperature rise in the heat sink. For this purpose, a prototype version of the VCTES heat sink is fabricated and tested for thermal performance. The volume foot-print of the vapor chamber is about 6"X5"X2.5". A custom fabricated thermal energy storage setup is incorporated inside this vapor chamber. A heat flux of 40 W/cm2 is applied at the source as a pulse and convection cooling is used on the condenser surface. Experiments are done with and without using PCM in the thermal energy storage setup. It is found that using PCM as a second latent system in the setup helps in lowering the undue temperature rise of the heat sink system. It is also found that the thermal resistance between the vapor chamber and the thermal energy storage setup, the pool boiling resistance at the heat source in the vapor chamber, the condenser resistance during heat discharging were key parameters that affect the thermal performance. Some suggestions for future improvements in the design to ease its implementation and enhance the heat transfer of this novel heat sink are also presented.

Nowadays the environmental sustainability and the limitation of the energy consumption of buildings is of substantial importance in order to reduce greenhouse gases emissions and mitigate the consequences of climate change. Thermal energy storage (TES) allows to store thermal energy when available in order to use it when and where necessary. The use of insulating materials with TES capability may results in the compensation of energy absorption peaks caused by air conditioning or by space heating with a consequent reduction of energy consumption and related CO2 emissions. This work aims at the development and characterization of composite materials based on polymeric foams and containing a phase change material providing the TES capability. The production procedures were optimized in order to maximize the quality of the samples and the main properties of the resulting materials were then investigated. Different matrices were considered in this work: thermosetting, thermoplastic and elastomeric ones. As thermosetting matrix, a polyurethane foam was considered: this foam was filled, during the production process, with increasing amounts (from 10 to 40 wt%) of a microencapsulated PCM with a melting point of 24 °C. The addition of the PCM caused the disruption of the regular close cell morphology of the foams with a consequent increase of the thermal conductivity and a reduction of the mechanical properties. On the other hand, the addition of the PCM led to interesting TES properties, measured both through differential scanning calorimetry and infrared thermography (up to 54 J/g). Polyethylene was chosen as thermoplastic matrix and the technology of salt leaching was used to obtain foams without the use of chemical foaming agents. Foams containing different amounts (up to 56 wt%) of a microencapsulated PCM with a melting point of 24 °C were prepared. The addition of the PCM led to a decrease of the connectivity and porosity values of the prepared foams with a consequent decrease of the mechanical properties and increase of the thermal conductivity. Despite the rupture of a certain part of the PCM capsules due to the production process, good TES properties (up to 50 J/g) were measured. Elastomeric foams were prepared using an EPDM rubber as matrix and different foaming agents for the expansion process: foams obtained using two different commercial foaming agents were compared with foams obtained using the salt leaching technique. In the first case, a shape-stabilized PCM was added during the production process, while in the second one the foams were impregnated with a liquid PCM without the necessity of a shape stabilization. Salt leaching foams were able to retain higher PCM loads with respect to foams produced using commercial foaming agents and were therefore characterized by higher TES capability (up to 129 J/g). Infrared thermography tests highlighted that the time required to reach a reference temperature during heating/cooling cycles was three times longer for samples with a PCM amount of about 55 wt%. These foams evidenced a general decrease of the mechanical properties upon PCM addition. Moreover, a strong influence of the temperature on the mechanical behaviour of these foams was highlighted, with the PCM acting as softener above its melting point and as hardener below. In order to consider practical applications, elastomeric panels made of an ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber filled with a shape stabilized PCM and covered with a nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) envelope were prepared. It was possible to verify the absence of leakage, the uniform distribution of the PCM and the influence of temperature on the mechanical properties of the samples. From rheological tests it was also possible to observe the plasticizing effect of the PCM that hindered the vulcanization process of the EPDM/PCM compound. In the second part of this work larger samples were prepared and used for the internal insulation of wood boxes that were subjected to heating/cooling cycles, simulating thus real summer conditions in north Italy. The beneficial effect of the PCM resulted in a consistent reduction of the temperature peak with respect to a reference box insulated with elastomeric panels without PCM. Moreover, the fire behaviour of the produced samples was studied and the effect of the addition of different flame retardants was deeply investigated. The addition of a flame retardant based on ammonium polyphosphate and aluminium diethyl phosphinate as synergistic agents allowed a strong reduction of the peak of heat release rate measured through cone calorimeter tests, with a significant improvement of the fire behaviour. Fire tests allowed also to point out the significant role, in improving the fire performances of the samples, of the interactions between ammonium polyphosphate and the mineral fillers present in the EPDM/PCM compound (clay) and in the envelope (talc, kaolin and silica). A better comprehension of the combustion mechanisms and of the flame retardant efficacy was achieved through the analysis of the combustion residues. Finally, the specific enthalpy of the different systems was evaluated with respect to the cost of the raw materials used in the production stages in order to classify them on the basis of their melting enthalpy and on the economical aspects.

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[pt] Na exploração de campos offshore, é frequente a necessidade transportar óleo e gás por dutos de produção ou de transferência que percorrem grandes distâncias no leito submarino. Em relação aos gasodutos, podem ocorrer a formação de condensado ao longo desses, o que afeta drasticamente a capacidade de entrega e a modalidade operacional, sendo a remoção do condensado realizada por pigs. Além disso, devido a existência de condições extremas como baixas temperaturas e altas pressões, pode ocorrer a formação de plug de hidrato nos gasodutos. Nesse caso, são previstas operações especiais para a remoção do plug de hidrato, onde, durante o procedimento, pode ser gerado condensado. Dessa forma, é importante que essas operações sejam simuladas durante a fase de projeto e de operação para avaliar a efetividade dos procedimentos e os valores das variáveis de processo de forma a garantir a segurança operacional do sistema. O objetivo deste estudo é investigar numericamente o processo de deslocamento de pigs e de plugs de hidrato ao longo de tubulações, na presença de condensado. A formação de condensado é obtida através de um modelo de equilíbrio de fases, que utiliza a equação de Peng-Robinson para o cálculo das propriedades termodinâmicas para ambas as fases. O escoamento bifásico é modelado como unidimensional. A solução das equações de conservação de massa, quantidade de movimento linear e energia, acopladas ao balanço de forças para prever o deslocamento do pig/plug são resolvidas utilizando o método numérico de diferenças finitas. A modelagem do escoamento e do modelo termodinâmico, englobando o equilíbrio de fases e as propriedades termodinâmicas, foram validadas com soluções analíticas e dados da literatura. Estudos de casos de deslocamento de pig e de plug de hidrato na presença de condensado foram realizados e os resultados obtidos foram bastante satisfatórios, permitindo concluir que os modelos desenvolvidos podem ser utilizados para a análise e previsão das operações de passagem de pig e de remoção de plugs de hidrato na presença de condensado. / [en] In offshore oilfield exploration, gas is often transported through long-distance transfer pipelines or production pipelines on the seabed. Along the pipeline, condensate may be formed, which dramatically affect the delivery capacity and the operational mode, requiring condensate removal employing pigs. Further, due to the presence of extreme conditions encountered in these pipelines, such as low temperatures and high pressures, hydrate plug can also be formed inside the gas pipelines. In this case, special procedures are foreseen to remove the hydrate plug, during which condensate may be generated. Thus, it is essential that these operations should be simulated throughout the design and operation stages to evaluate the efficacy of these procedures and the process variable values in order to guarantee the system s operational safety. The purpose of this study is to investigate numerically the process of displacement of pigs and hydrate plugs along pipelines, in the presence of condensate. The condensate formation is obtained through a phase behavior model (FLASH), which employs the Peng-Robinson equation to calculate the thermodynamic properties for both phases. Two-phase flow is modeled as one-dimensional. The conservation equations of mass, linear momentum and energy, coupled with the force balance to predict the displacement of the pig/plug are solved, using the numerical method of finite differences. The flow and thermodynamic models were validated with analytical solutions and literature data. The validation of the thermodynamic model included the phase equilibrium and thermodynamic properties. Case studies of displacement of pig and hydrate plug in the presence of condensate were performed and the results obtained were very satisfactory, allowing to conclude that the developed models can be used for the analysis and prediction of the pigging operations and removal of hydrate plugs in the presence of condensate.