Evaluating Recharge Options for Phase-Change Material Storage of a Personal Conditioning System

Rohit Dhumane; Yiyuan Qiao; Jan Muehlbauer; Jiazhen Ling; Vikrant Aute; Yunho Hwang

doi:10.1080/23744731.2019.1667699

Evaluating Recharge Options for Phase-Change Material Storage of a Personal Conditioning System

Rohit Dhumane, Yiyuan Qiao, Jan Muehlbauer, Jiazhen Ling, Vikrant Aute, Yunho Hwang

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The Roving Comforter (RoCo) is a vapor compression-cycle-based personal conditioning system (PCS). It stores its condenser waste heat into a phase-change material (PCM)-based thermal storage. When the PCM is completely melted, the PCM storage needs to be recharged before the next cooling operation. This may be conducted in two different ways: (i) a two-phase thermosiphon operation that consumes much less power and requires a longer recharge time (∼6.5 h), or (ii) a heat pump operation that consumes more power with a much shorter operation time (∼2.5 h). The objective of this article is to analyze the merits and demerits of these two recharge operations. A validated dynamic model of the thermosiphon and heat pump in Modelica is used to evaluate the overall coefficient of performance for combined cooling and recharge operations. The modeling framework discussed here is fairly generic and facilitates investigating vapor compression cycle integration strategies with PCM storage modes. The article provides interesting insights and quantification of benefits obtained from various strategies adopted for improving the PCS.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1337-1351
Number of pages	15
Journal	Science and Technology for the Built Environment
Volume	25
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/23744731.2019.1667699
State	Published - Nov 26 2019
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This research was supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) under Award DE-AR0000530 and by the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (CEEE). The authors acknowledge the support of the team members of the Roving Comforter Project.

Funders	Funder number
CEEE
Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy	DE-AR0000530
Center for Environmental Energy Engineering, University of Maryland
Advanced Research Projects Agency

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10.1080/23744731.2019.1667699

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abstract = "The Roving Comforter (RoCo) is a vapor compression-cycle-based personal conditioning system (PCS). It stores its condenser waste heat into a phase-change material (PCM)-based thermal storage. When the PCM is completely melted, the PCM storage needs to be recharged before the next cooling operation. This may be conducted in two different ways: (i) a two-phase thermosiphon operation that consumes much less power and requires a longer recharge time (∼6.5 h), or (ii) a heat pump operation that consumes more power with a much shorter operation time (∼2.5 h). The objective of this article is to analyze the merits and demerits of these two recharge operations. A validated dynamic model of the thermosiphon and heat pump in Modelica is used to evaluate the overall coefficient of performance for combined cooling and recharge operations. The modeling framework discussed here is fairly generic and facilitates investigating vapor compression cycle integration strategies with PCM storage modes. The article provides interesting insights and quantification of benefits obtained from various strategies adopted for improving the PCS.",

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AU - Aute, Vikrant

AU - Hwang, Yunho

PY - 2019/11/26

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N2 - The Roving Comforter (RoCo) is a vapor compression-cycle-based personal conditioning system (PCS). It stores its condenser waste heat into a phase-change material (PCM)-based thermal storage. When the PCM is completely melted, the PCM storage needs to be recharged before the next cooling operation. This may be conducted in two different ways: (i) a two-phase thermosiphon operation that consumes much less power and requires a longer recharge time (∼6.5 h), or (ii) a heat pump operation that consumes more power with a much shorter operation time (∼2.5 h). The objective of this article is to analyze the merits and demerits of these two recharge operations. A validated dynamic model of the thermosiphon and heat pump in Modelica is used to evaluate the overall coefficient of performance for combined cooling and recharge operations. The modeling framework discussed here is fairly generic and facilitates investigating vapor compression cycle integration strategies with PCM storage modes. The article provides interesting insights and quantification of benefits obtained from various strategies adopted for improving the PCS.

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Evaluating Recharge Options for Phase-Change Material Storage of a Personal Conditioning System

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