This paper presents a study on the effect of pore size on energy absorption characteristics of a PCM-metal foam energy storage system. Different metal foam geometries are generated by using a geometry creation model which considers the metal foam structure as a combination of overlapping spherical pores. The geometry creation model is coupled to an enthalpy-based phase change model to simulate melting. The main advantage of the model is that it can resolve the pore-scale structures of the metal foam and hence can capture the heat transfer between the PCM and metal foam accurately. The model is applied to analyze the effects of variation of pore size on melting and energy absorption characteristics by keeping the overall porosity constant. Simulation results show that, even for the same porosity, the pore size distribution strongly affects the rate of melting with smaller pores resulting in faster melting and higher heat transfer rate. This observation is found to be consistent for both low porosity and relatively high porosity systems.

中文翻译：

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不同孔径分布的PCM-金属泡沫体系能量吸收特性比较

本文研究了孔径对 PCM-金属泡沫储能系统能量吸收特性的影响。通过使用几何创建模型生成不同的金属泡沫几何形状，该模型将金属泡沫结构视为重叠球形孔的组合。几何创建模型与基于焓的相变模型耦合以模拟熔化。该模型的主要优点是它可以解析泡沫金属的孔隙尺度结构，从而可以准确地捕获相变材料和泡沫金属之间的传热。该模型用于在保持总体孔隙率恒定的情况下分析孔径变化对熔化和能量吸收特性的影响。模拟结果表明，即使孔隙率相同，孔径分布也会强烈影响熔化速率，孔径越小，熔化速度越快，传热速率越高。发现该观察结果对于低孔隙率和相对高孔隙率系统都是一致的。