Fredi Giulia, Dorigato Andrea, Fambri Luca, Pegoretti Alessandro
INSTM Research Unit, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, 38123 Trento, Italy.
Polymers (Basel). 2021 Sep 15;13(18):3108. doi: 10.3390/polym13183108.
The simultaneous need for high specific mechanical properties and thermal energy storage (TES) function, present in several applications (e.g., electric vehicles), can be effectively addressed by multifunctional polymer-matrix composites containing a reinforcing agent and a phase change material (PCM). The PCMs generally decrease the mechanical properties of the host structural composites, but a multifunctional composite can still be beneficial in terms of mass saving, compared to two monofunctional units performing the structural and heat management functions individually. To quantify any possible advantages, this paper proposes an approach that determines the conditions for an effective mass saving at the system level and ranks the investigated structural TES composites with a parameter called multifunctional efficiency. It is found that the potential mass saving is higher when the volume fraction of the reinforcement is kept constant also when the PCM fraction increases or when the single phases (reinforcement, PCM) are themselves multifunctional.
在一些应用（如电动汽车）中，对高比机械性能和热能存储（TES）功能的同时需求，可以通过含有增强剂和相变材料（PCM）的多功能聚合物基复合材料有效解决。PCM通常会降低主体结构复合材料的机械性能，但与分别执行结构和热管理功能的两个单功能单元相比，多功能复合材料在质量节省方面仍可能具有优势。为了量化任何可能的优势，本文提出了一种方法，该方法确定系统层面有效节省质量的条件，并使用一个称为多功能效率的参数对所研究的结构TES复合材料进行排名。研究发现，当增强材料的体积分数保持不变时，随着PCM分数的增加，或者当单相（增强材料、PCM）本身具有多功能时，潜在的质量节省会更高。
