Abstract
The melting heat transfer of nano-enhanced phase change materials was addressed in a thermal energy storage unit. A heated U-shape tube was placed in a cylindrical shell. The cross-section of the tube is a petal-shape, which can have different amplitudes and wave numbers. The shell is filled with capric acid with a fusion temperature of 32 °C. The copper (Cu)/graphene oxide (GO) type nanoparticles were added to capric acid to improve its heat transfer properties. The enthalpy-porosity approach was used to model the phase change heat transfer in the presence of natural convection heat transfer effects. A novel mesh adaptation method was used to track the phase change melting front and produce high-quality mesh at the phase change region. The impacts of the volume fraction of nanoparticles, the amplitude and number of petals, the distance between tubes, and the angle of tube placements were investigated on the thermal energy rate and melting-time in the thermal energy storage unit. An average charging power can be raised by up to 45% by using petal shape tubes compared to a plain tube. The nanoadditives could improve the heat transfer by 7% for Cu and 11% for GO nanoparticles compared to the pure phase change material.
Highlights
Thermal energy storage systems have attracted numerous researchers due to their economic and environmental benefits
Noting that the phase change materials (PCMs) remains in the solid-state in the zones where the temperature is lower than Tm, while it melts once the temperature exceeds Tm
2, as it can be seen that the region of the melted PCM around the tube petals is greater compared to a circular tube (Λ = 0)
Summary
Thermal energy storage systems have attracted numerous researchers due to their economic and environmental benefits. As the phase change materials can absorb and release latent heat during solidification and melting, they are widely used in thermal energy storage systems. The phase change materials are capable of storing a significant amount of latent energy in a small mass. By using latent heat thermal energy storage, the solar heat can be stored during the daytime and later released during the night times [1]. Two major benefits of latent heat thermal energy storage are the high specific heat of phase change and low-temperature variation during thermal storage [2]. The latent thermal energy storage can be used to cool
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