The authors have presented a literature review on computational and experimental studies on the thermal conductivity of nanostructure enhanced phase change materials (nePCMs). It was found that a wide range of nanostructures have been investigated, from carbon nanostructures and carbon nanotubes to metal and metal oxide nanoparticles. The carbon nanostructures and nanotubes were found to generally enhance the thermal conductivity of the PCMs by a greater amount than metal or ...
The effects of particle size/shape, base fluid, and volumetric concentration on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids has been studied. It was found that decreasing the particle size leads to an increased thermal conductivity, and that using water as a base fluid led to the greatest enhancement of thermal conductivity. The effects of gravity, Brownian motion, and thermophoresis on particle motion were also investigated and it was found that gravity ...
The use of 2,3-hydroxymethyl-2,3-dinitro-1,4-butanediol tetranitrate (SMX) as an oxidizer for solid composite rocket propellants was evaluated by the authors. SMX is an attractive alternative to the oxidizer used more traditionally, ammonium perchlorate (AP) because it is less toxic to the environment. It was found that SMX is very similar to AP in its handling characteristics, and thermal diffusivity; however, its thermal conductivity was lower than that of AP....
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 ...
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 ...
