Performance Analysis of Metal Hydride Based Cooling Systems
A. Satheesha, P. Muthukumarb and Anupam Dewanc
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, India.
asatheesh@iitg.ernet.in
bpmkumar@iitg.ernet.in
cadewan@iitg.ernet.in
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a numerical investigation of a single-stage single-effect metal hydride based cooling system working with two different metal hydride pairs, namely, LmNi4.91Sn0.15 / Ti0.99Zr0.01V0.43Fe0.09Cr0.05Mn1.5 (1st alloy pair) and LaNi4.61Mn0.26Al0.13 / La0.6Y0.4Ni4.8Mn0.2(2nd alloy pair). The influence of operating parameters such as heat source, heat sink and refrigeration temperatures (TH, TM and TC), and bed parameters such as thermal conductivity and bed thicknesses on system performance is predicted. The unsteady, two-dimensional, mathematical model in an annular cylindrical configuration is solved numerically for predicting the conjugate heat and mass transfer characteristics between coupled reactors by using the fully implicit finite volume method (FVM). Numerical results are validated with the experimental data reported in the literature. Results show that for a given heat sink and refrigeration temperatures, COP of the system, specific cooling power (SCP) and the amount of hydrogen exchange between the paired reactors are found to increase with heat source temperature. For a given operating conditions and reactor geometry, COP and SCP of LmNi4.91Sn0.15 / Ti0.99Zr0.01V0.43Fe0.09Cr0.05Mn1.5 and LaNi4.61Mn0.26Al0.13 / La0.6Y0.4Ni4.8Mn0.2 hydride pairs are found to be 0.543, 53.25 W/kg and 0.43, 56.2 W/kg, respectively.
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