ANALYSIS OF PCM MATERIAL IN HEAT TRANSFER SYSTEM: A REVIEW

Abstract

Domestic refrigerators are among the foremost wide used household appliances and an excellent portion of energy is employed by these systems. Reduction of temperature fluctuation and improvement of system performance is that the main reason of using phase change materials (PCMs) in refrigeration systems. Totally different approaches are used to improve the thermal performance of these systems by integration of PCM. Despite large number of studies, a comprehensive literature review specifically that specializes in the application of PCM in domestic refrigerators is missing. This paper presents a review of the experimental efforts also as modeling approaches to review the application of PCMs in domestic refrigerators. Moreover, benefits and drawbacks of each kind of storage are given and, the future and potential promising applications of PCMs in domestic refrigerators are mentioned. The study investigates the performance improvement provided by a phase change material (PCM) associated with the condenser in a domestic refrigerator. The heat release and storage rate of a refrigerator is depends upon the characteristics of refrigerant and its properties. In this study we also investigated the performance improvement provided by Phase Change material associated with the evaporator in a domestic refrigerator. In both cases it is found that use of phase change material considerably increases the performance of the domestic refrigerator. Keywords: Phase change material, Domestic refrigeration system, Thermal storage, Condenser.