Coupled cooling method and application of latent heat thermal energy storage combined with pre-cooling of envelope: Temperature control using phase-change chair

A latent heat thermal energy storage system is a safe, stable, and reliable method of controlling the room temperature. However, this system is difficult to fit in some harsh environments such as a mine refuge chamber where the temperature is high. In this article, a new coupled cooling method implementing a phase change chair (PCC) is proposed, which is not only suitable for harsh environments, but also saves valuable living space. A new PCC model and a simplified coupled heat transfer model considering the air, surrounding rock, PCC, and heat source are established. The effects of melting temperature, latent heat, thermal conductivity, and thickness of PCC were systematically investigated. The analysis results indicated that: (i) the coupled cooling method based on the PCC could effectively control the temperature in 40 h. (ii) under the given operating conditions, the optimal melting temperature is approximately 27 °C, and the thermal conductivity of PCC is 0.6 W/m K. (iii) increasing the latent heat and the thickness of PCC has a similar effect on temperature control. For every 30 kJ/kg increase in the latent heat or 0.01 m increase in the thickness, the control time increases by 4.5 h, but the effect gradually decreases.