Investigations of optimized fin structures in a compact thermal energy storage panel

Abstract

In this paper, the thermal behaviours of phase change material (PCM) within a compact thermal energy storage panel installed with conductive metal fins were numerically investigated. To improve the thermal performance of the metal fins, a topological structure optimization approach was employed to generate innovative fin structures with the so-called best heat conduction paths. The conventional plate fin structures with the same metal volume fractions as the optimized structures were considered for comparative studies. Four metal volume fractions including 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20 were investigated. Results showed that at the same metal volume fraction, the optimized fin design can significantly enhance the melting of PCM as compared to the plate fin design. When f=0.9, the average PCM melting speeds obtained by the optimized fin structures were 1.10, 1.19, 1.31, and 1.69 times as that by the plate fin designs at the melt volume fractions of 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20, respectively. Moreover, the optimized fin structure with a metal volume fraction of 0.10 can achieve the comparable melting speed as the plate fin design with a metal volume fraction of 0.15, and the melting speed achieved by the optimized fin structure with a metal volume fraction of 0.15 is even faster than that by the plate fin design with a metal volume fraction of 0.20.