Abstract
ABSTRACT The study presents the numerical simulation of the melting process of phase change material, paraffin wax in a rectangular cavity using ANSYS fluent. The simulation is done for three different Stefan numbers 0.13, 0.18 and 0.28. Enthalpy porosity model and volume of fluid model is used to solve the governing equations. The presence of natural convection and sinking of the solid phase is observed in the density contours. The presence of air content in the cavity is taken into account during estimation of un-melted solid fraction in the cavity which is the novelty of this work. An empirical equation is also derived to calculate solid fraction at different times with different Stefan numbers. This type of empirical equation is proposed for the spherical cavity but not very common in a rectangular cavity. This empirical equation can be useful for designing of latent heat energy storage unit, heat exchanger using phase change material and for the study of metal casting processes. The melting process is also simulated with three different initial shapes of solid paraffin wax in the rectangular cavity. The study reveals that the melting time is not linearly proportional to the volume of paraffin wax.
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