A Study on the Heat Transfer Enhancement of Phase Change Energy Storage of CH₃COONa·3H₂O

A study was carried out on the thermal property analysis of different ratio CH₃COONa·3H₂O phase change materials by differential scanning calorimetry. The results show that the mass ratio with 97.0%∶1.5%∶1.5% of phase change material has the maximum enthalpy and can effectively improve the undercooling and phase separation. Starting from improving the structure of heat storage unit, a heat exchanging device with phase change material was designed and built for an experimental study on the characteristics of heat storage and release of the material. Determined the curves of temperature change with time of the CH₃COONa·3H₂O in different unit structure. The effects law of different flow rate, different pipe diameter and inner fin on the heat storage and heat release process are revealed. Through the analysis it is found that increasing the inner fin can effectively improve the heat transfer efficiency of phase change material in heat storage unit, the melting time and solidification time decreases 27% and 33% respectively.