Phase change materials (PCMs) store large amounts of latent heat over small temperature ranges, so their application in the thermal regulation of buildings is becoming more popular. However, PCMs have low thermal conductivities, so micro-encapsulated PCMs (micro-PCMs) are being incorporated into PCMs to enhance their performance and improve thermal conductivity. In this study, micro-PCMs were mixed with thermally conductive, inorganic gypsum powder and glass fiber to produce gypsum boards. The ...
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) combined with inorganic matrices are not structurally sound unlike singular CNTs which have good mechanical performances. Borosilicate glass, commercially known as Pyrex, is durable but has yet to be successfully fabricated using the sol-gel technique. In this paper, the sol-gel technique was used to manufacture borosilicate glass matrix composites with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The technique measured thermal conductivity of the materials using the transient plane source (...
Thermophysical and structural properties of sintered ore particles (SOPs) were determined to expand upon the little documented information there is regarding the properties of these materials. In addition to this, a fractal model was also developed for the prediction of thermal conductivity in SOPs as a function of porosity. The experimental results revealed that the specific heat capacity increased with increasing temperature and that the thermal conductivity decreased with increasing ...
The potential of the transient plane source (TPS) technique for the testing of thermo-physical properties of hydrogen storage materials is evaluated. To do this, stacks of interleaved samples of stainless steel 316L, Teflon, and Lexan were tested for thermal conductivity using the anisotropic module in the TPS software. It was determined that the axial and radial thermal conductivities were as expected with the exception of the presence of some deviation ...
A nanoparticle-enhanced phase change material (NePCM) is prepared by the dispersal of carbon nanotubes in 1-dodecanol. The objective of this experiment was to determine if the addition of nanoparticles could increase the thermal conductivity of the base PCM while resulting in a NePCM that would still have the required properties of a functional PCM. It was found that the thermal conductivity was enhanced through the addition of the carbon nanotubes; ...
