Design of an Automated Thermal Cycler for Long-term Phase Change Material Phase Transition Stability Studies
This paper highlights the use of the COMSOL Multiphysics® software during the design process of a thermal cycling system for regulated PCM phase transitioning. The primary purpose of the simulations was to predict the system behavior in response to an ON/OFF temperature control system prior to commencing the construction process. The simulation results indicated that the system temperature was controllable through cartridge heaters and thermoelectric Peltier modules. The results indicated that a complete phase change cycle was achievable within 16 minutes for PCMs with melting temperatures between 30°C and 60°C. Upon construction of the thermal cycling system, simulation results were validated against experimentally collected data. Good correlations were identified for the system temperature response to the implemented control systems.
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