The density related properties (specific gravity, density, apparent porosity), and thermal transport properties were determined for diorite and granite rocks taken from the Shewa-Shahbaz Garhi volcanic complex, Pakistan. All measurements were made at varying temperatures from 253-333 K to determine the effect of temperature on the properties. It was found that all of the properties investigated depended on the chemical composition of the rock samples. For a given sample, the ...
Consolidated water sorbents with varying densities were prepared by adding expanded graphite treated with sulphuric acid to activated carbon-lithium chloride composites for use as a lab-scale prototype for thermal energy storage. The sorption reactor prototype that was designed was unable to reach the 1 kWh heat storage target. Further research will be done with the goal of developing a 15 kWh reactor which would be capable of meeting the heating demand of ...
The thermal properties of synthetic gas hydrate-bearing sediment samples were determined by the transient plane source method. The samples were made up of sand, water, gas, and methane hydrates, and these samples were supercooled to minimize the effects of the heat of fusion of methane hydrate on the thermal conductivity measurements. The thermal conductivity was found to increase with increasing methane hydrate saturation for saturations from 0-0.3. Thermophysical models were ...
The effects of incorporating phase change materials (PCMs) into concrete on the potential service lives of bridges were investigated. It was determined that PCMs could potentially be used in the future to reduce the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on bridges, but more work needed to be done to improve the strength of concretes containing PCMs before this could be applied. It was determined that increasing the latent heat of fusion ...
The author presents a literature review of current methods of determining thermal conductivity in order to select the best method for measuring TRISO fuel compacts. Based on the properties of the sample, the guarded-comparative-longitudinal heat flow technique was selected and a system was assembled to perform this measurement....
