Melting performance of Molten Salt with nanoparticles in a novel triple tube with leaf-shaped fins

Abstract

Energy demand has greatly increased today and phase change storage technology is rapidly growing due to its renewable nature. This study explores a new Triple Tube Heat Exchanger (TTHX) model, which divides phase change materials (PCMs) into two regions to improve the connection between TTHX and PCM, to improve the thermal conductivity of PCMs with different fins' number, arrangement, and angle, consequently enhancing thermal storage efficiency. A more efficient exchanger is developed by using Molten Salt as PCM and adding TiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles with different concentrations. Liquid fraction, temperature, and velocity obtained from numerical simulation are employed to characterize thermal storage efficiency. ANSYS 2022R1 is used for pre-modeling and numerical computations. The simulation results are turned into graphs and charts for PowerPoint and Origin analysis. We find that PCM's heat transfer efficiency is increased by 34.3 % when effective fins are added, and the addition of 5%TiO2 further increases it by 8.73 %. With the addition of Al2O3 and its concentration variation, combined with the effective fins, the heat transfer efficiency of the PCM can be enhanced by 40.73 %.

Keywords

• Phase change material
• Thermal storage efficiency
• Leaf-shaped fins
• Nanoparticles
• Triple tube heat exchanger