Due to the advantage of large latent heat and isothermal behavior during the phase change process

solid-liquid phase change material (PCM)can be well applied in the passive thermal design for thermal control unit (TCU)of portable electronic devices.However

PCM has a major drawback of low thermal conductivity

leading to low charging and discharging rates and bad TCU performance.Therefore

it is necessary to enhance the PCM conductivity to improve the TCU thermal performance.A two-dimension mathematical model of TCU filled with foam-PCM composite material (FCPCM)was presented

and numerical simulation was conducted to analyze the TCU thermal performance.The effect of void was considered in the numerical model for FCPCM heat transfer and equivalent capacity method was used to handle PCM phase change process.The thermal performance of TCU filled with FCPCM was compared to that with fins.Further

the effects of some important parameters on TCU thermal performance were investigated numerically

such as foam porosity

heat source power and foam matrix material.The results show that the FCPCM with aluminum matrix can greatly improve the TCU performance

and the design can provide a reliable solution to electronic thermal control.