PERFORMANCE PREDICTION OF CYCLIC THERMAL REGENERATORS UTILIZING LATENT-HEAT OF PACKING MATRIX

Thermal storage systems utilising the latent heat of fusion of a phase change material (PCM) are simulated for symmetric-balanced/unbalanced conditions in terms of the conventional thermal effectiveness and new ly proposed performance characteristic factors. A unified two-phase mo del is formulated to accommodate the performance prediction of cyclic thermal regenerators with encapsulated PCM or conventional packing. Th e effects of flow channelling and transverse thermal condition on the performance of such systems are also discussed.