Abstract:
Phase change materials (PCMs) are the most attractive
thermal energy storage media due to their reduced storage
volume and isothermal behavior during charging and
discharging processes. Their main drawback is the slow thermal
response due to the low thermal conductivity. Various methods
for PCM thermal conductivity enhancement have been
investigated by many researchers. The present study has the
objective of investigating fins for enhancing thermal
conductivity of PCM and meliorate their thermal performance.
The formulated model for the horizontal radial finned tube is
based on pure conduction in the PCM and numerically treated
by finite difference and Alternating Direction Implicit (ADI)
formulation. The numerical code is optimized and the
numerical predictions were validated against experimental
results. Additional numerical and experimental measurements
were realized to investigate the effects of the cooling fluid
temperature, its mass flow rate, diameter, thickness and
material of the fin on the interface velocity, solidified mass and
the time for complete solidification.
Description:
Papers presented to the 12th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Costa de Sol, Spain on 11-13 July 2016.
