Evaluation and optimization of melting performance of latent thermal s

• Published in: Journal of energy storage 2020-08, Vol.30, p.101423, Article 101423
• Main Authors: Wang, Y., Hui, X.Y., Meng, X.X., Jin, Z.G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Comprehensive performance evaluation; Latent thermal accumulator; Natural convection; Phase change materials; Porous metal foam fin
• ISSN: 2352-152X; 2352-1538
• DOI: 10.1016/j.est.2020.101423

•Melting properties of PCMs in horizontal concentric tube are studied.•Optimal arrangement of embeds is determined by thermal reservoir rate density.•Longest 18 radial porous model has best comprehensive performance of heat storage.•The optimized scheme has better heat storage performance and lower cost. In the present work, the phase change materials (PCMs) melting characteristics with partial metal foam filled in horizontal concentric tube heat accumulator are numerically investigated. The thermal response of PCMs is improved by using porous media. By comparing the properties of different porous configurations, the position of porous inserts is optimized. According to the thermal reservoir rate density, the optimal arrangement of porous embeds is determined. The results show that this method can effectively investigate the melting performance of materials, such as complete melting time, thermal storage capacity and total materials mass. The results indicate that the best melting performance of PCMs structure is 18 radial porous fins and the optimal length of radial porous fins is the ring width. Comparing with the no porous media case, the thermal storage rate density has increased over 2.6 times obviously. It's worth noting that compared with the full porous media case, the comprehensive performance is reduced by 46.7%, while the porous material is reduced by 80%. The optimized scheme has better heat storage performance and lower cost.