An experimental study of the latent functionally thermal fluid with micro-encapsulated phase change material particles flowing in microchannels

Phase change material holds a good promise as a media of thermal energy storage and intensive heat flux removal. In this context, experiments were conducted to investigate the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic properties of a latent thermal fluid, which consisted of water and well dispersed micro-encapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) particles, flowing in parallel microchannels. It is suggested that MEPCM particles loading induces much higher pressure drop, which is very sensitive to temperature. Compared against water, the heat transfer performance of MEPCM slurry performs much better owing to particles aggregation, collision and micro-convective around the particles. Besides these, latent heat absorbed during phase change process makes the key contribution. It is found that with melting occurrence, Nusselt number of the slurry with only 2% MEPCM particles would increase remarkably and achieves 1.36 times as that of pure water, which is very benefit to the thermal management system.