Spray cooling is a technique for achieving large heat fluxes at low surface temperatures by impinging a liquid in droplet form on a heated surface. Heat is removed by droplets spreading across the surface, thus removing heat by evaporation and by an increase in the convective heat transfer coefficient. The addition of nano-sized particles, like aluminum or copper, to water to create a nanofluid could further enhance the spray cooling process. Nanofluids have been shown to have better thermophysical properties when compared to water, like enhanced thermal conductivity. Although droplet size, velocity, impact angle and the roughness of the heated surface are all factors that determine the amount of heat that can be removed, the dominant driving mechanism for heat dissipation by spray cooling is difficult to determine. In the current study, experiments were conducted to compare the enhancement to heat transfer caused by using alumina nanofluids during spray cooling instead of de-ionized water for the same nozzle pressure and distance from the heated surface. The fluids were sprayed on a heated copper surface at a constant distance of 21 mm. Three mass concentrations, 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1.0%, of alumina nanofluids were compared against water at three pressures, 40psi, 45psi, and 50psi. To ensure the suspension of the aluminum oxide nanoparticles during the experiment, the pH level of the nanofluid was altered. The nanofluids showed an enhancement during the single-phase heat transfer and an increase in the critical heat flux (CHF). The spray cooling heat transfer curve shifted to the right for all concentrations investigated, indicating a delay in two-phase heat transfer. The surface roughness of the copper surface was measured before and after spray cooling as a possible cause for the delay.

The diffusion absorption refrigeration (DAR) cycle is a promising technology for fully thermally driven cooling. It is well suited to applications in medicine refrigeration and air-conditioning in off-grid settings. However, design and engineering knowhow for the technology is limited; therefore, system development has historically been an iterative and expensive process. Additionally, conventional system designs require high-grade energy input for operation, and are unsuitable for low-temperature solar- or waste-heat activated applications. In the present effort, component- and system-level DAR engineering analyses are performed. Detailed bubble-pump generator (BPG) component models are developed, and are validated experimentally and with direct simulations. Investigations into the BPG focus on the Taylor flow pattern in the intermediate Bond number regime, which has not yet been thoroughly characterized in the literature, and has numerous industry applications, including nuclear fuel processing and well dewatering. A coupling-fluid heated BPG design is also investigated experimentally for low-source-temperature operation. Phase-change simulation methodologies are developed to rigorously study the continuously developing flow pattern in this BPG configuration. Detailed component-level models are also formulated for all of the other DAR heat and mass exchangers, and are integrated to yield a complete system-level model. Results from these modeling studies are applied to develop a novel fully passive low-source-temperature (110 - 130°C) DAR system that delivers refrigeration grade cooling. This design achieves operation at target conditions through the use of alternate working fluids (NH3-NaSCN-He), the coupling-fluid heated BPG, and a novel absorber configuration. The complete DAR system is demonstrated experimentally, and evaluated over a range of operating conditions. Experimental results are applied to assess and refine component- and system- level models.

The present work investigates, numerically, the process of melting and solidification in hollow vertical cylinders, filled with air and phase change material (PCM). The PCM used is sodium nitrate, which expands upon melting. Therefore, a void must be present within the cylinder, which is filled with air. The influence of cylinder shape on melting time is determined. The numerical model takes both conductive and convective heat transfer into account during the melting process. The Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) model is used to track the interface between the PCM and air as the PCM melts. Three dimensionless numbers represent the characteristics of the problem, which are the Grashof, Stefan, and Prandtl numbers. The Stefan and Prandtl numbers are held constant, while the Grashof number varies. Inner Aspect Ratio (AR) is used to characterize the shape of the cylinder, which is defined as the ratio of the height to the diameter of the vertical cylinder. In this study, a range of AR values from 0.23 to 10 is investigated. Cylinders with small AR, corresponding to high Grashof numbers, lead to lower melting times compared with cylinders with high AR. The molten PCM velocity was also influenced greatly by this difference between solid PCM shape between high and low AR cases. Cylinders with small AR, corresponding to high Grashof numbers, lead to higher solidification times compared with cylinders with high AR. It was found that the velocity decreased during the solidification process, but the shape of the cylinder had an effect on the decrease. Natural convection velocity was found to decrease during the solidification process and, therefore, its effects diminish as solidification proceeds.

Sensible energy storage for solar domestic hot water (SDHW) systems is space consuming and heavy. Latent heat energy storage systems (LHESSs) offer a solution to this problem. However, the functionality of a LHESS during simultaneous charging/discharging, an operating mode encountered when used with a SDHW, had not been studied experimentally. A small scale vertical cylindrical LHESS, with dodecanoic acid as the phase change material (PCM), was studied during separate and simultaneous charging/discharging. Natural convection was found to have a strong influence during melting, but not during solidification. During simultaneous operation heat transfer was limited by the high thermal resistance of the solid PCM. However, when the PCM was melted, direct heat transfer occurred between the hot and cold heat transfer fluids, indicating the significance of the PCM phase on heat transfer in the system. The results of this research will lead to more optimally designed LHESS for use with SDHW. ?

In this paper we report a low symmetry version of structure H hydrate that results from the hexagonal form on cooling below 167 K. Phase changes with temperature in the common clathrate hydrates structural families I, II and H have not been observed before, except in doped systems where ordering transitions take place or in the structure I hydrate of trimethylene oxide where the guest molecule dipoles are known to order. Since there is an inverse relationship between the effect of temperature and pressure on ices, it may well be that the low symmetry form reported at low temperature can also be reached by applying high pressure, and that in fact some of the observed high pressure phases are lower symmetry versions of hexagonal sH.

This thesis work presents a numerical study of the effects of fins and thermal fluid velocities on the storage characteristics of a cylindrical latent heat energy storage system (LHESS). The work consists of two main components: 1. The development of a numerical method to study and solve the phase change heat transfer problems encountered in a LHESS during charging of the system, which results in melting of the phase change material (PCM). The numerical model is based on the finite element method. The commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics was used to implement it. The effective heat capacity method was applied in order to account for the large amount of latent energy stored during melting of a PCM, and the moving interface between the solid and liquid phases. The fluid flow, heat transfer and phase change processes were all validated using known analytical solutions or correlations. 2. Due to the low thermal conductivity of PCMs, the heat transfer characteristics of an enhanced LHESS was studied numerically. The effects of fins and the thermal fluid velocity on the melting rate of the PCM in the LHESS were analyzed. Results obtained for configurations having between 0 and 27 fins show that the heat transfer rate increases with addition of fins and thermal fluid velocity. The effect of the HTF velocity was observed to be small with few fin configurations since the thermal resistance offered by the LHESS system, mostly PCM, is vastly more important under these conditions; while its effect becomes more pronounced with addition of fins, since the overall thermal resistance decreases greatly with the addition of fins. The total energy stored after 12 hours for 0 and 27 fins configurations range between 3.6 MJ and 39.7 MJ for a thermal fluid velocity of 0.05 m/s and between 3.7 MJ and 57 MJ for a thermal fluid velocity of 0.5 m/s. The highest system efficiencies for the 0.05 m/s and 0.5 m/s, obtained with 27 fins configuration are 68.9% and 97.9% respectively.

Mercury (Hg) is a potent human toxin and a persistent global pollutant with unique properties and environmental behaviours which make it difficult to model and understand. While anthropogenic mercury sources are well understood along with the impacts on ecosystems and human populations, the processes and transformations which govern environmental cycling lack the same level of understanding. Concentrations in Arctic environments are a specific concern, along with cycling behaviours in regions spanning from temperate to Arctic climates. The objective of this experiment was the investigation and characterization of the mechanisms which promote elemental mercury (Hg^0) flux from soils in these environments during simulated seasonal cycling. A laboratory scale experiment was conducted which used a Dynamic Flux Chamber (DFC) to monitor Hg^0 flux from a naturally Hg enriched soil during temperature cycling relevant to cold environments. The results, which were split into freeze-thaw (FT) and sub-zero (SZ) cycles, showed that Hg^0 flux from frozen soils remains active during temperature cycling. During FT cycles, Hg^0 flux is controlled by soil temperature and energy entering the system, with a linear increase in flux for increases in energy. This response is produced from the entire soil column. During SZ cycles, Hg^0 flux is produced only in the thin soil surface layer and is controlled by the air temperature at the soil-air interface. A decrease in the DFC air temperature was observed to produce an increase in flux, with an inverse relationship controlled by a separate mechanism than the FT cycle response. Recommendations for modifications to the experimental set-up and methodology have been made to improve the accuracy of the results and confirm the behaviours characterized during this study. / Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Driving with the cold engine increases fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. A latent heat energy storage device has been proposed to recover waste heat and reduce engine warm-up time by using phase change materials (PCMs) as an energy storage medium. Two types of paraffin waxes and 50/50 mixture of the two have been examined to characterize their behaviors under repetitive heating/freezing. From the results, the heat transfer is more effective in the case of narrower spacing distances between the cooling plates and high circulating flow rate of the heat transfer fluid. A 50/50 mixture of two paraffin waxes also provides better heat transfer due to the possible existence of both conduction and natural convection. The results of the metal block simulation experiments demonstrated the potential of latent heat TES’s for use in engine warm-up.

Driving with the cold engine increases fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. A latent heat energy storage device has been proposed to recover waste heat and reduce engine warm-up time by using phase change materials (PCMs) as an energy storage medium. Two types of paraffin waxes and 50/50 mixture of the two have been examined to characterize their behaviors under repetitive heating/freezing. From the results, the heat transfer is more effective in the case of narrower spacing distances between the cooling plates and high circulating flow rate of the heat transfer fluid. A 50/50 mixture of two paraffin waxes also provides better heat transfer due to the possible existence of both conduction and natural convection. The results of the metal block simulation experiments demonstrated the potential of latent heat TES’s for use in engine warm-up.

This thesis deals with the synthesis and characterization of Ge-Te-Sb (GST) thin films. The films were deposited using a Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) method and mainly characterized with XRD, SEM, AFM and TEM. For amorphous and polycrystalline films, un-etched Si(100) was used. The amorphous films showed a similar crystallization behavior as films deposited with sputtering and evaporation techniques. When depositing GST on un-etched Si(100) substrates at elevated substrate temperatures (130-240°C), polycrystalline but highly textured films were obtained. The preferred growth orientation was either GST(111) or GST(0001) depending on if the films were cubic or hexagonal. Epitaxial films were prepared on crystalline substrates. On KCl(100), a mixed growth of hexagonal GST(0001) and cubic GST(100) was observed. The hexagonal phase dominates at low temperatures whereas the cubic phase dominates at high temperatures. The cubic phase is accompanied with a presumed GST(221) orientation when the film thickness exceeds ~70 nm. Epitaxial films were obtained with deposition rates as high as 250 nm/min. On BaF2(111), only (0001) oriented epitaxial hexagonal GST films are found, independent of substrate temperature, frequency or deposition background pressure. At high substrate temperatures there is a loss of Ge and Te which shifts the crystalline phase from Ge2Sb2Te5 towards GeSb2Te4. GST films deposited at room temperature on BaF2(111) were in an amorphous state, but after exposure to an annealing treatment they crystallize in an epitaxial cubic structure. Film deposition on pre-cleaned and buffered ammonium fluoride etched Si(111) show growth of epitaxial hexagonal GST, similar to that of the deposition on BaF2(111). When the Si-substrates were heated directly to the deposition temperature films of high crystal-line quality were obtained. An additional heat treatment of the Si-substrates prior to deposition deteriorated the crystal quality severely. The gained results show that PLD can be used as a method in order to obtain high quality epitaxial Ge-Sb-Te films from a compound target and using high deposition rates.