Abstract
This paper contains a numerical investigation comparing a series of data for the application of energy storage using a triple tube heat exchanger. The main objective is to study the effect of free convection for a uniform melting in a certain thickness of phase change material (PCM). In addition to that, a non-dimensionless parametric study has been conducted to evaluate the effect of thermal behaviour with the change of the parameters. In this study, the main focus has been kept on studying the effect of inlet temperature and inlet velocity of the heat transfer fluid (HTF) which is described by Stefan number (Ste) and Reynolds number (Re) respectively. The result obtained from the analysis showed that, inlet temperature has a direct impact on achieving uniform melting and lesser melting time however inlet velocity has no such effect on that due to dominant effect of free convection. The vertical orientation of the heat exchanger was also found helpful towards congruent melting as it is influencing the buoyancy force and created a motion in the PCM region.
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