Numerical investigation on PCM melting in triangular cylinders

Abstract

A numerical study has been provided to investigate the characteristics of PCM melting in triangular cylinder containers. Commercial paraffin wax has been selected as a PCM and a hot air stream is used as a source of heat energy for the melting process. The flow structure and convective heat transfer around the triangular cylinders have been determined and discussed. Three triangular cylinders of equal volume and different in apex angles (24°, 60° and 100°) have been investigated. The influence of apex angle variation on the flow behavior and on the mechanism of heat transfer to the cylinder walls is presented. Assessment of heat storage capacity is introduced for the various containers. The modeling of the flow field and heat transfer as well as the melting process has been carried out by using Ansys Fluent–CFD software. Finite volume technique is applied and SIMPLE algorithm is used. The results showed that the apex angle and the triangle base length have a remarkable effect on the container surface temperature and on the heat storage efficiency. Keywords: Melting in triangular containers, Phase change materials, Latent energy storage, Numerical modeling of melting