CHAPTER 1.

INTERODUCTION

Climate control in automobile is becoming a critical factor for modern day automobile engineers.
Application of HVAC is found to be the available methodology till date while some may believe
aerodynamic cooling just by keeping the windows open would be an alternate choice, in fact
driving by keeping window open not only increases the aerodynamic drag also keep the domain
noise level undesirable and the inner environment cannot be assured to be clean while HVAC
technique is used, it consumes too much of energy that makes the vehicle fuel inefficient. During
parking of the vehicle when relative wind velocity is almost the absolute velocity of wind which
is around 2-4 m/s, solar heating of inner cabin is found to be so sensitive. When HVAC system is
put in off mode the cabin temperature raises very drastically. Particularly during summer when the
ambient temperature is very high at peak hours say 12 PM to 3 PM it is absolutely a critical
challenge to keep the cabin temperature low. In the sunny days especially in the summer, when
the cars are parked in the parking facing the sun or even during the driving, the drivers feel severe
thermal discomfort just after entering an automobile. Therefore, a huge amount of cooling energy
from the AC must be used to lower down the temperature to the comfort condition. There has also
been accidental death of young children or animals (dogs) that had been left in the cars parked
facing the sun in the summer days. In order to maintain the comfort condition in the interior
compartment while driving the car, many car models are equipped with air-conditioning systems.
This results in consuming more cooling energy and therefore burning more fuels that causes more
costs and more pollution released to the atmosphere. Phase changing materials (PCM) which are
capable of storing huge amount heat during the phase change extents its application in many areas.

1.1 Classification of PCMs

A large number of phase change materials (organic, inorganic and eutectic) are available in
any required temperature range. A classification of PCMs is given in Fig. 3. There are a large
number of organic and inorganic chemical materials, which can be identified as PCM from the
point of view melting temperature and latent heat of fusion. However, except for the melting
point in the operating range, majority of phase change materials does not satisfy the criteria
required for an adequate storage media as discussed earlier. As no single material can have all
the required properties for an ideal thermal-storage media, one has to use the available materials
and try to make up for the poor physical property by an adequate system design. For example,
metallic fins can be used to increase the thermal conductivity of PCMs, supercoiling may be
suppressed by introducing a nucleating agent or a ‘cold finger’ in the storage material and
incongruent melting can be inhibited by use of suitable thickness. In general inorganic
compounds have almost double volumetric latent heat storage capacity (250–400 kg/dm3) than
the organic compounds (128–200 kg/dm3). For their very different thermal and chemical
behaviour, the properties of each subgroup which affects the design of latent heat thermal energy
storage systems using PCMs of that subgroup are discussed in detail below.

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 Fig 1 classification of PCM

1.1.1 Organic phase change materials

Organic materials are further described as paraffin and nonparaffins. Organic materials
include congruent melting means melt and freeze repeatedly without phase segregation and
consequent degradation of their latent heat of fusion, self-nucleation means they crystallize with
little or no supercoiling and usually non-corrosiveness.

(i) paraffin

Paraffin qualifies as heat of fusion storage materials due to their availability in a large
temperature range. Due to cost consideration, however, only technical grade paraffin’s may be
used as PCMs in latent heat storage systems. Paraffin is safe, reliable, predictable, less expensive
and non-corrosive.

(ii) Non-paraffin

The non-paraffin organic are the most numerous of the phase change materials with highly
varied properties. These organic materials are further subgroups as fatty acids and other non-
paraffin organic. These materials are flammable and should not be exposed to excessively high
temperature, flames or oxidizing agents.

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 Advantages
 Freeze without much undercooling
 Ability to melt congruently
 Self-nucleating properties
 Compatibility with conventional material of construction
 No segregation
 Chemically stable
 High heat of fusion
 Safe and non-reactive
 Recyclable
 Carbohydrate and lipid based PCMs can be produced from renewable sources
 Disadvantages
 Low thermal conductivity in their solid state. High heat transfer rates are required during
the freezing cycle. Nano composites were found to yield an effective thermal conductivity
increase up to 216%.
 Volumetric latent heat storage capacity can be low
 Flammable. This can be partially alleviated by specialist containment, or by incorporating
environmentally friendly fire retardants.

1.1.2 Inorganic phase change materials

Inorganic materials are further classified as salt hydrate and metallic. These phase change
materials do not supercool appreciably and their heats of fusion do not degrade with cycling.

(i) Salt hydrates

The solid–liquid transformation of salt hydrates is actually a dehydration of hydration of the salt,
although this process resembles melting or freezing thermodynamically. A salt hydrates usually
melts to either to a salt hydrate with fewer moles of water. Salt hydrates are the most important
group of PCMs, which have been extensively studied for their use in latent heat thermal energy
storage systems. The most attractive properties of salt hydrates are: (i) high latent heat of fusion
per unit volume, (ii) relatively high thermal conductivity (almost double of the paraffin’s), and (iii)
small volume changes on melting. They are not very corrosive, compatible with plastics and only
slightly toxic. Many salt hydrates are sufficiently inexpensive for the use in storage.

(ii)Metallic

This category includes the low melting metals and metal eutectics. These metallic have not yet
been seriously considered for PCM technology because of weight penalties. However, when
volume is a consideration, they are likely candidates because of the high heat of fusion per unit
volume. They have high thermal conductivities, so fillers with added weight penalties are not
required. The use of metallic poses a number of unusual engineering problems. A major difference
between the metallic and other PCMs is their high thermal conductivity. A list of some selected
metallic is given in Table 6. Some of the features of these materials are as follows: (i) low heat of

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fusion per unit weight (ii) high heat of fusion per unit volume, (iii) high thermal conductivity, (iv)
low specific heat and (v) relatively low vapour pressure.

 Advantages

 High volumetric latent heat storage capacity

 Availability and low cost
 Sharp melting point
 High thermal conductivity
 High heat of fusion
 Non-flammable
 Disadvantages
 Incongruous melting and phase separation upon cycling which can cause a significant loss
in latent heat enthalpy.
 Corrosive to many other materials, such as metals.
 Change of volume is very high
 Super cooling is major problem in solid–liquid transition
 Nucleating agents are needed and they often become inoperative after repeated cycling.

1.1.3 Eutectics

A eutectic is a minimum-melting composition of two or more components, each of which melts

and freeze congruently forming a mixture of the component crystals during crystallization.
Eutectic nearly always melts and freezes without segregation since they freeze to an intimate
mixture of crystals, leaving little opportunity for the components to separate. On melting both
components liquefy simultaneously, again with separation unlikely. Some segregation PCM
compositions have sometimes been incorrectly called eutectics, since they are minimum melting.
Because of the components undergoes a paratactic reaction during phase transition, however, they
should more properly be termed peritectics.

 Advantages
 Some inorganic eutectics have sharp melting point similar to pure substance.
 Volumetric storage density is slightly above organic compounds.
 Extra water principle can be used to avoid phase change degradation, involving
dissolving the anhydrous salt during melting to result in a thickening of the liquid
material so that it melts to a gel form; however, this can cause huge reduction in latent
heat.
 Disadvantages
 They still have the same disadvantages as inorganic PCMs, such as reduced thermal
performance upon cycling, corrosively, high volume change, and high supercoiling.
 Sharp crystals may form when the salt hydrate PCM solidifies, potentially causing leaks
in cases of macro-encapsulation.
 Limited data is available on thermo-physical properties as the use of these materials is
limited compared to organic PCMs.

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1.2 SELECTION CRITERIA

 Melting temperature in the desired operating temperature range

 High latent heat of fusion per unit volume
 High specific heat, high density and high thermal conductivity
 Small volume changes on phase transformation and small vapour pressure at operating
temperatures to reduce the containment problem
 Congruent melting
 Kinetic properties
 High nucleation rate to avoid super cooling of the liquid phase
 High rate of crystal growth, so that the system can meet demands of heat recovery from the
storage system
 Chemical properties
 Chemical stability
 Complete reversible freeze/melt cycle
 No degradation after a large number of freeze/melt cycle
 Non-corrosiveness, non-toxic, non-flammable and non-explosive materials
 Economic properties
 Low cost
 Availability

1.3 APPLICATION

 Thermal energy storage

 Solar cooking
 Cold Energy Battery
 Conditioning of buildings, such as 'ice-storage'
 Cooling of heat and electrical engines
 Cooling: food, beverages, coffee, wine, milk products, green houses
 Medical applications: transportation of blood, operating tables, hot-cold therapies, treatment
of birth asphyxia
 Human body cooling under bulky clothing or costumes.
 Waste heat recovery
 Off-peak power utilization: Heating hot water and Cooling
 Heat pump systems
 Passive storage in bioclimatic building/architecture (HDPE, paraffin)
 Smoothing exothermic temperature peaks in chemical reactions
 Solar power plants
 Spacecraft thermal systems
 Thermal comfort in vehicles
 Thermal protection of electronic devices
 Thermal protection of food: transport, hotel trade, ice-cream, etc.

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 Textiles used in clothing
 Computer cooling
 Turbine Inlet Chilling with thermal energy storage

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 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
R. velraj, [Link](2007) has discussed in this papergarding modelling of PCM integrated
building roof system.

 In physical system considered is a stainless pannel filed with PCM placed in between the
roof top slab and the bottom concrete slab, which form the roof of the PCM room.

Fig 2 PCM fitted in celling

PCM (48% Cacl2+4.3% Nacl+0.4% Kcl+47.3% H2o) it is use in building roof material for thermal
comfort

Vijaykumar Nachimuthu, PrabhuMani(2014) has discussed in this paper that CFD analysis of
application of phase change material in automotive climate controlled system.

Case 1:- Car with AC off without PCM

Case 2:-Car with Ac on without PCM
Case 3:-PCM coated where AC off

[Link] Deva Kannan, Dr. K. Palaniradja(July 2015)

Filling of Phase change material:

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Filling the PCM is a major problem. It consists of two methods:
1. Encapsulation.
2. Filling the PCM as a layer.

Filling the PCM as a layer increases the cost so we are going for encapsulation method. The
selected Phase change material is filled in the aluminum foil pouches and sealed to avoid the
leakages during the phase transformation. So that number of aluminum pouches are filled and
sealed, and then installed at the top of the car cabin. The advantages of encapsulation are:
1. Reducing PCMs reactivity towards the outside environment.
2. Controlling the changes in the storage material when phase change occurs.

Atul Sharma, V.V. Tyagi (9 October 2007)

Experimental Layout:
In mid size cars, solar radiation is incident mostly on the top most cover. Due to this, the
temperature gets higher and affects the human comfort. So that the air conditioner is used to
extract the heat inside the cars nowadays, but the usage increases the load which increase the fuel
consumption and causes the environmental pollution.

Fig 4 PCM fitted in car roof body

In order to avoid those problems, the usage of air conditioner is replaced by the phase change
material. In this case, the air conditioner is taken out and top cover is filled with the phase change
material. The Phase change material is filled in the aluminium pouch and sealed. These pouches
are installed inside the car at the top cover. Thus Phase change material extracts the heat inside the
car. The amount of heat extracted is depends on the mass of the phase change material.

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 CHAPTER 3. AIM AND OBJECTIVE
3.1 AIM
To study the climate controlled in vehicle body by use of phase change material(PCM).

3.2 OBJECTIVE
To study the and evaluate the effect of PCM fitted on the car roof for the thermal comfort and
humidity controlled.

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 CHAPTER 4. REFERNCES

[1]. Giriswamy B G, Eswarmoorthy M, Yellappa M and Satyamurthy N, “Experimental Study and

Thermal Characterization Of Nano Composite
Phase Change Material” International Journal Of Mechanical Engineering And Robotics Research
Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2014,

[2]. Amrit Om Nayak, [Link], [Link], and [Link] , “Comparative Study between
Experimental Analysis and CFD Software Analysis of
PCM material in Thermal Energy Storage System” International Journal of Chemical Engineering
and Applications, Vol. 2, No. 6, December 2011

[3]. A. Jamekhorshid, S. M. Sadrameli “Application of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) in

Maintaining Comfort Temperature inside an Automobile”,
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology Vol: 61 2012-01-25

[4] K. Yamashita, T. Kuroda, Y. Tochihara, T. Shibukawa, Y. Kondo, H.

Nagayama, “Evaluation of summertime thermal comfort in
automobiles,” Environmental Ergonomics, pp. 299–303, 2005.

[5] A. Grundstein, V. Meentemeyer, J. Dowd, “Maximum vehicle cabin

temperatures under different meteorological conditions,” Int. J.
Biometeorol, vol. 53, pp. 255-261, 2009.

[6] D.W. Green, R.H. Perry, Perry’s chemical engineers’ handbook, 8th
ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 2008.

[7] Code of Federal Regulations, Title 40: protection of environment,

Section 600.315-82_Classes of comparable automobiles

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