Use Of Nanoparticle Enhanced Phase Change Material (NEPCM) For Data Center Cooling Application

Abstract

This study attempts to take advantage of nanoparticles with high thermal conductivity and the latent heat capacity of phase change materials together to enhance heat transfer rate. The main difficulty in using PCM for energy application is its low thermal conductivity in solid state. So, when solidification starts it makes it hard for evacuation of energy. A paraffin-based nanoparticle containing various volume fractions of Cu was applied. The suspended nanoparticles caused an increase in thermal conductivity of nanoparticles enhanced phase change material (NEPCM) compared to conventional PCM, resulting in heat transfer enhancement and a higher melting rate. The higher temperature difference between the melting temperature and the hot wall temperature expedited the melting process of NEPCM. Present results show that dispersing nanoparticles in smaller volumetric fractions increase the heat transfer rate. The increase of the heat release rate of the nanoparticle-enhanced phase change materials shows its great potential for data center cooling applications. A commercially available Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool is used for the analysis to determine the effect of improved thermal conductivity and cooling effectiveness. The objective of this project is to design and fabricate a shell- tube, phase change material (PCM) based heat exchanger.