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Experimental investigation of a compressed air vehicle prototype with phase change materials for heat recovery
Author(s) -
Evrin Reza Alizade,
Dincer Ibrahim
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
energy storage
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2578-4862
DOI - 10.1002/est2.159
Subject(s) - compressed air , heat exchanger , work (physics) , automotive engineering , torque , materials science , power (physics) , powertrain , range (aeronautics) , mechanical engineering , phase change material , nuclear engineering , environmental science , process engineering , phase change , composite material , engineering , thermodynamics , physics , engineering physics
In this article, an experimental investigation, where the prototype of a new pneumatic vehicle is developed, analyzed, built and tested, is presented. The system consists of a novel compressed air system integrated with phase change materials for heat recovery purposes. The prototype is experimentally built and tested at the Ontario Tech. University in Oshawa. Three different phase change materials of polyethyleneglycol, paraffin and alkane mix are investigated for heat recovery purposes in the prototype where the paraffin option provides the best result. Furthermore, the maximum torque is found to vary between 21 and 44 Nm with changing shaft speed from 400 to 1300 rpm while the minimum torque fluctuates between 3 and 13 Nm with changing shaft speed in the same range. The supplementary battery power is 2.18 kW, and the turbine work output is found to be 1.25 kW with the recovered air which is provides 36% of the heat required to heat up the PCM heat exchanger. The total motor work consumed during operation is 18.36 kW, which can be defined as the acceptable capacity for the powertrain of a small‐size city vehicle. The energetic efficiency for the compressed air vehicle is 59.5% while the exergetic efficiency becomes 51.0%, respectively.