Phase 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
Numerical simulations have been investigated to study the external free convective heat transfer from a vertically rectangular interrupted fin arrays. The continuity, Naver-Stockes and energy equations have been solved for steady-state, incompressible, two dimensional, laminar with Boussiuesq approximation by Fluent 15 software. The performance of interrupted fins was evaluated to gain the optimum ratio of interrupted length to fin length (
In this paper, an experimental analysis of conventional air-cooled and microchannel condensers in automotive vapor compression refrigeration cycle concerning heat transfer coefficient and energy using R134a as a refrigerant was presented. The performance of two condensers and cycles tested regarding ambient temperature which it was varied from 40oC to 65oC, while the indoor temperature and load have been set to be 23oC and 2200 W respectively. Results showed that the microchannel condenser has 224 % and 77 % higher refrigerant side and air side heat transfer coefficient respectively than the coefficients of the conventional condenser. Thus, the COP, in case of using the microchannel
... Show MoreThe effects of T-shaped fins on the improvement of phase change materials (PCM) melting are numerically investigated in vertical triple-tube storage containment. The PCM is held in the middle pipe of a triple-pipe heat exchanger while the heat transfer fluid flows through the internal and external pipes. The dimension effects of the T-shaped fins on the melting process of the PCM are investigated to determine the optimum case. Results indicate that while using T-shaped fins improves the melting performance of the PCM, the improvement potential is mainly governed by the fin’s body rather than the head. Hence, the proposed T-shaped fin did not noticeably improve melting at the bottom of the PCM domain; additionally, a flat fin is ad
... Show MoreComputational study of three-dimensional laminar and turbulent flows around electronic chip (heat source) located on a printed circuit board are presented. Computational field involves the solution of elliptic partial differential equations for conservation of mass, momentum, energy, turbulent energy, and its dissipation rate in finite volume form. The k-ε turbulent model was used with the wall function concept near the walls to treat of turbulence effects. The SIMPLE algorithm was selected in this work. The chip is cooled by an external flow of air. The goals of this investigation are to investigate the heat transfer phenomena of electronic chip located in enclosure and how we arrive to optimum level for cooling of this chip. These par
... Show MoreThe present study explores numerically the energy storage and energy regeneration during Melting and Solidification processes in Phase Change Materials (PCM) used in Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage (LHTES) systems. Transient two-dimensional (2-D) conduction heat transfer equations with phase change have been solved utilizing the Explicit Finite Difference Method (FDM) and Grid Generation technique. A Fortran computer program was built to solve the problem. The study included four different Paraffin's. The effects of container geometrical shape, which included cylindrical and square sections of the same volume and heat transfer area, the container volume or mass of PCM, variation of mass flow rate of heat transfer fluid (HTF), and temp
... Show MoreIn this study, the effect of intersecting ribs with inclined ribs on the heat transfer and flow characteristics of a high aspect ratio duct has been numerically investigated. The Relative roughness pitch (P/e) is 10 and the Reynolds number range from 35,700 to 72,800. ANSYS (Fluent-Workbench 18.0) software has been utilized to solve the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with the Standard k-ε turbulence model. Three ribbed models have been used in this study. Model 1 which is a just inclined ribs, Model 2 which has a single longitudinal rib at the center with inclined ribs and Model 3 which has two longitudinal ribs at the sides. The results showed that the heat transfer rate has been enhanced when the int
... Show MoreIn this study, the flow and heat transfer characteristics of Al2O3-water nanofluids for a range of the Reynolds number of 3000, 4500, 6000 and 7500 with a range of volume concentration of 1%, 2%, 3% and 4% are studied numerically. The test rig consists of cold liquid loop, hot liquid loop and the test section which is counter flow double pipe heat exchanger with 1m length. The inner tube is made of smooth copper with diameter of 15mm. The outer tube is made of smooth copper with diameter of 50mm. The hot liquid flows through the outer tube and the cold liquid (or nanofluid) flow through the inner tube. The boundary condition of this study is thermally insulated the outer wall with uniform velocity a
... Show MoreUtilizing phase change materials in thermal energy storage systems is commonly considered as an alternative solution for the effective use of energy. This study presents numerical simulations of the charging process for a multitube latent heat thermal energy storage system. A thermal energy storage model, consisting of five tubes of heat transfer fluids, was investigated using Rubitherm phase change material (RT35) as the. The locations of the tubes were optimized by applying the Taguchi method. The thermal behavior of the unit was evaluated by considering the liquid fraction graphs, streamlines, and isotherm contours. The numerical model was first verified compared with existed experimental data from the literature. The outcomes re
... Show MoreThis paper reports experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling studies to investigate the effect of the swirl intensity on the heat transfer characteristics of conventional and swirl impingement air jets at a constant nozzle-to-plate distance ( L = 2 D). The experiments were performed using classical twisted tape inserts in a nozzle jet with three twist ratios ( y = 2.93, 3.91, and 4.89) and Reynolds numbers that varied from 4000 to 16000. The results indicate that the radial uniformity of Nusselt number (Nu) of swirl impingement air jets (SIJ) depended on the values of the swirl intensity and the air Reynolds number. The results also revealed that the SIJ that was fitted with an insert of y = 4.89, which correspo
... Show More