Effect of fin length and angle on the melting process of phase change materials in vertical latent heat storage unit

IF 1.2 4区工程技术 Q3 ENGINEERING, MECHANICAL

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A: Journal of Power and Energy Pub Date : 2023-07-15 DOI:10.1177/09576509231188554

Yongxue Zhang, Zhihao Wang, Bohui Lu, Mengxi Luo

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The installation of fins offers an effective solution for addressing the poor thermal conductivity of phase change materials (PCMs) in latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) systems. This paper aims to investigate the combined effects of unequal fin length arrangements and the inclination angle of fins on the performance of an LHTES system during the charging process. The LHTES system consists of a cylindrical container filled with paraffin (RT55) serving as the PCM. Numerical models are established and validated, followed by simulating various fin structures to analyze the complete melting time of the PCM. The characteristics of the melting process are further examined in four representative cases, including the full melting time, evolution of the melt fraction, average maximum velocity, streamline contours, temperature uniformity, and average Nusselt number. The results reveal that the optimal case, featuring unequal length and downward annular fins, achieves a significant 49.8% reduction in the complete melting time of the PCM compared to the benchmark case with ordinary annular fins. Moreover, the optimal configuration increases the largest average maximum velocity of the PCM by 35.36%, resulting in a more uniform temperature distribution and a higher Nusselt number.

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翅片长度和角度对垂直潜热蓄热装置中相变材料熔化过程的影响

在潜热蓄热（LHTES）系统中，翅片的安装为解决相变材料（PCM）导热性差的问题提供了有效的解决方案。本文旨在研究不等长的翅片排列和翅片的倾斜角度在充电过程中对 LHTES 系统性能的综合影响。LHTES 系统由一个装满石蜡（RT55）作为 PCM 的圆柱形容器组成。首先建立并验证了数值模型，然后模拟各种翅片结构，分析 PCM 的整个熔化时间。在四种具有代表性的情况下，进一步研究了熔化过程的特征，包括完全熔化时间、熔体分数的演变、平均最大速度、流线轮廓、温度均匀性和平均努塞尔特数。结果表明，与采用普通环形翅片的基准情况相比，采用不等长且向下的环形翅片的最佳情况可使 PCM 的完全熔化时间显著缩短 49.8%。此外，最佳配置还将 PCM 的最大平均最大速度提高了 35.36%，从而使温度分布更加均匀，努塞尔特数也更高。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A: Journal of Power and Energy 工程技术-工程：机械

CiteScore

3.30

自引率

5.90%

发文量

114

审稿时长

5.4 months

期刊介绍： The Journal of Power and Energy, Part A of the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, is dedicated to publishing peer-reviewed papers of high scientific quality on all aspects of the technology of energy conversion systems.