Space equipment is subjected to intense vibrational environments from launch through orbital stabilization, presenting significant challenges to the reliability and performance of thermal buffers for onboard electronic components. With the objective of elucidating the influence of external vibration on phase change thermal buffer, this study implementes the apparent heat capacity method to simulate the phase transition process, while the effects of vibration are incorporated by introducing a custom vibration-induced source term into the governing equations. The accuracy of the proposed numerical approach is partly validated through comparison with experimental tests. The melt-front location, the velocity field distribution and the spatial distribution of local thermal resistance within the melting zone are evaluated. Results show that vibrational conditions can significantly disrupt the natural convection processes within the melted phase. However, low-frequency vibrations may enhance heat transfer performance and promote a faster migration rate of the melt-front. A complex coupling exists between vibration frequency and the phase change flow process. Specifically, there is a characteristic frequency corresponding to the natural convection intensity, beyond which higher-frequency vibrations begin to suppress convective flow and deteriorate the overall heat transfer performance.

Phase change material,Thermal buffer,Vibration,Thermal resistance