Solidification process and changing the physical behavior of PCM with involve of nanoparticles

Abstract

To attain a new system with a higher rate of freezing, two approaches were utilized in this paper namely: (1) loading alumina nanoparticles; (2) involving curved walls. The geometry has two cold surfaces and pure PCM is water. The convection role in this mechanism is very low and so the related terms have been neglected in modeling. By adding source term of freezing in energy equations and removing the advection terms, the final form of mathematical model will appear. Finite element method, by involving the implicit technique, has been selected for simulations and to increase the correctness of code, an adaptive grid has been utilized. For better description of efficacy of alumina nanoparticles, influences of size and amount of powders have been examined. As greater sizes are utilized, the period firstly decreases around 19.98% then it augments around 49.13%. Besides, the dispersion of powders results in 70.06% reduction in freezing time.