Experimental research and numerical simulation on melting and solidification of metal foam composite phase change material

Due to the adsorption performance of the high porosity metal foam structure, metal foam composite phase change energy storage material was prepared by using barium hydroxide octahydrate (Ba(OH)₂·8H₂O) as phase change material (PCM) and copper foams as supporting matrix. Phase change temperature and latent heat of Ba(OH)₂·8H₂O were measured with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). An experimental setup was built to study the heat transfer performances of phase change thermal storage units (TSUs) with and without copper foams. The enthalpy-porosity model was adopted to simulate solid-liquid phase change process. The experimental and numerical results indicated that the thermal conductivity was improved and the phase change time was shortened. The numerical and experimental results showed good agreement, which indicates that the assumptions could be accepted. The conclusion provided guidelines for phase change TSU application.