Parametric study of phase change time reduction in a shell-and-tube ice storage system with anchor-type fin design

Abstract

This paper introduces an innovative anchor-type longitudinal fin design that copes with the sluggish phase change process in shell-and-tube ice storage units by covering the regions between the conventional fins. The influence of these fins is studied on both melting and solidification processes. The simulations show that the melting process is much slower than the solidification process (up to 201.5%), and the presence of fins can be more influential on the melting process. The examined parameters for the fins are arc angle (θ), shank length (Lsh), number of anchor-type fins (Nf), and number of arcs on these fins (Na). The study reveals that at an identical PCM volume, this type of fin can improve the melting time by 1367.7 and 151.8% compared to when the bare tube and conventional longitudinal fins with the same length and number are used, respectively. On the other hand, these values for the solidification process are 544.2 and 89.5%, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that these fins manage to diminish the undesirable effects of natural convection by disrupting the unwanted thermal stratification in the container by breaking the large circulation zone for the natural fluid flow in the container into several smaller circulation areas.