Modeling of phase change material implemented into cold storage application

Loss of electrical power for cold storage facilities leads to an increase in temperature and can result in the loss in quality and value of stored products. This article proposes the use of a passive system integrated into the walls of the cold storage facility to limit the rise in temperature due to power loss. Experimental application of phase change material into a domestic freezer has shown that the temperature rise during loss of power is limited. With phase change material, the air temperature remained constant at -8 degrees C (17.6 degrees F) for 7 h, compared to without phase change material where the air temperature rises continuously to well above -8 degrees C (17.6 degrees F) in just 1 h. Computational fluid dynamics results show a reasonable match with experimental results. The computational fluid dynamics model is then extended to model a large cold storage facility to show that phase change material can have significant improvement to the thermal performance of an industrial-size cold store.