Heat transfer by borehole ground heat exchangers involves diverse time–space scales and thus imposes a significant challenge to geothermal engineers. In order to overcome this challenge, this paper develops an analytical full-scale model from the idea of matched asymptotic expansion. The...

Carbon nanotubes grafted with stearyl alcohol (CNTs-SA) was used in synthesizing phase change microcapsules (MicroPCMs) in order to enhance the thermal conductivities of the microcapsules. Urea–formaldehyde resin (UFR) was used as wall material. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), laser...

Fatty acid phase change materials (PCMs) have some advantages such as less corrosivity, no separation of subcooling phase and low price. In this paper, capric acid and palmitic acid are composited according to a certain mass ratio to prepare binary fatty acid. Capric–palmitic acid are absorbed...

A form-stable paraffin/silicon dioxide (SiO2)/expanded graphite (EG) composite phase change material (PCM) was prepared by sol–gel method. Silica gel acts as the supporting material and EG is used to increase the thermal conductivity. The mass fractions of silicon oxide and graphite are 20.8%...

This study prepared a series of binary phase change materials by mixing decanoic acid, dodecanoic acid, hexadecanoic acid and octadecanoic acid each other. The phase-transition temperature of binary fatty acid and its corresponding mixing proportion are calculated with phase diagram...

Short-time responses of borehole ground heat exchangers (GHEs) are difficult to predict because they involve heat capacity effect and various arrangements of U-shaped tubes within boreholes. To meet this engineering challenge, this paper builds a composite-medium line-source model. The central...

This work analyzes influence of anisotropy of anisotropic soil on the processes of heat transfer by ground heat exchangers used in ground-coupled heat pump systems. First, this paper uses the heat-source theory to develop several explicit exact solutions for heat conduction in anisotropic...

Nano-graphite (NG)/paraffin composites were prepared as composite phase change materials. NG has the function of improving the thermal conductivity of the composite. The microstructure and thermal properties of the materials were examined with environmental scanning electron microscopy and...

An experimental study is presented on the cement mortar incorporated with expanded graphite (EG)/paraffin composite phase change material (PCM). The composite PCM was prepared by absorbing paraffin into EG with vacuum absorption method. The heat storage cement mortar (HSCM) with proper mass...