Melting enhancement of PCM in a finned tube latent heat thermal energy storage

Abstract

Abstract The current paper discusses the numerical simulation results of the NePCM melting process inside an annulus thermal storage system. The TES system consists of a wavy shell wall and a cylindrical tube equipped with three fins. The enthalpy-porosity method was utilized to address the transient behavior of the melting process, while the Galerkin FE technique was used to solve the system governing equations. The results were displayed for different inner tube positions (right-left–up and down), inner cylinder rotation angle (0 ≤ α ≤ 3π/2), and the nano-additives concentration (0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 0.04). The findings indicated that high values of nano-additives concentration (0.4), bigger values of tube rotation angle (3π/2), and location of the tube at the lower position accelerated the NePCM melting process.