This study aims to evaluate the melting characteristics of a phase change material (PCM) in a latent heat storage system equipped with hemispherical and quarter-spherical fins. A vertical triple-pipe heat exchanger is used as the PCM-based heat storage unit to improve the melting performance compared with a double-pipe system. Furthermore, the fins are arranged in inline and staggered configurations to improve heat transfer performance. For the quarter-spherical fins, both upward and downward directions are examined. The results of the system equipped with novel fins are compared with those without fins. Moreover, a fin is added to the heat exchanger’s base to compensate for the natural convection effect at the bottom of the heat exchanger. Considering similar fin volumes, the results show that the system equipped with four hemispherical fins on the side walls and an added fin on the bottom wall has the best performance compared with the other cases with hemispherical fins. The staggered arrangement of the fins results in a higher heat transfer rate. The downward quarter-spherical fins with a staggered configuration show the highest performance among all the studied cases. Compared with the case without fins, the heat storage rate improves by almost 78% (from 35.6 to 63.5 W), reducing the melting time by 45%.
Although renewable energy systems have become an interesting global issue, it is not continuous either daily or seasonally. Latent heat energy storage (LHES) is one of the suitable solutions for this problem. LHES becomes a basic element in renewable energy systems. LHES compensate for the energy lack when these systems are at low production conditions. The present work considered a shell and tube LHES for numerical investigation of the tube rotation influence on the melting process. The simulation and calculations were carried out using ANSYS Fluent software. Paraffin wax represents the phase change material (PCM) in this work, while water was selected to be the heat transfer fluid (HTF). The calculations were carried o
... Show MoreThis work is to examine the employment of curved fins to boost heat recovery in a double-pipe containment system filled with phase change material (PCM). The study utilizes CFD modeling, validated against experimental benchmarks, to evaluate how various geometric parameters of curved fins affect system performance. Findings demonstrate that adjusting the fin angular curvature from 60◦ to 180◦ yielded a 22.1 % decrease in the time required for solidification while simultaneously improving heat recovery efficiency by 32.0 %. When the fin base spacing was increased from 5 mm to 15 mm, the system showed a 14.5 % solidification time saving and a 20.9 % heat recovery improvement. Furthermore, modifying the joining angle between upper fins fro
... Show MorePhase change material (PCM) is considered as one of the most effective thermal energy storage (TES) systems to balance energy supply and demand. A key challenge in designing efficient PCM-based TES systems lies in the enhancement of heat transmission during phase transition. This study numerically examines the privilege of employing twisted-fin arrays inside a shell-and-tube latent heat storage unit to improve the solidification performance. The presence of twisted fins contributes to the dominating role of heat conduction by their curved shapes, which restricts the role of natural convection but largely aids the overall heat-transfer process during solidification. The heat-discharge