The influence of aspect ratios of two elliptical cylinders on the solid-liquid phase change flow

Abstract

Nowadays, phase change materials are widespread in different engineering applications including cooling of electronics, thermal performance in building elements, heat exchangers, and many more. It is critical to gain thorough comprehension on phase change material behavior. The present research aims to numerically simulate phase change material in a heat storage unit having two isothermal elliptical elements. The formulated partial differential equations have been solved by the finite element technique taking into account the enthalpy-porosity approach and adaptive mesh refinement technique. The developed computational code has been validated using numerical and experimental data from the literature. The influence of the aspect ratios of the two elliptical cylinders on the melting phenomenon has been scrutinized, and the most efficient shapes have been identified. It has been found that more intensive melting occurs when the aspect ratios of the upper and lower cylinders are ARu = 0.25 and ARl = 4.0, with a reduction of 18.45 % in the melting time compared to the case with ARu = ARl = 1.0. Furthermore, the case with ARu = 1.0 and ARl = 0.5 shows the longest melting time, with an increase of 0.6 % in the melting time compared to the case with ARu = ARl = 1.0.