Effect of Fin on Melting Performance of Phase Change Material-Based Energy Storage

The application of phase change material (PCM) as a latent heat energy storage is increasing day by day. However, the usage of PCM is very limited due to the lower thermal conductivity of the PCM. In this study, an attempt has been made to enhance the PCM-based energy storage capacity by adopting two numbers of rectangular fins mounted in a circular pipe carrying heat transfer fluid (HTF) inside a square cavity filled with paraffin wax PCM (RT-45). The impact of fin positions and their size on the melting performance of the PCM is exercised meticulously for the PCM volume constraint and fixed perimeter of the fin(s). The mathematical models are solved numerically using the finite volume-based technique. The analysis is carried out for four different positions and sizes of the fins. The case of no-fin is also analyzed for the performance comparison. The melting pattern is visualized using the liquid fraction contour. From the results, it can be seen that initially, the conduction mode of heat transfer dominates, but as time goes on, the melting procedure is dominated by the natural convection mode of heat transfer. The bottom, elongated fin configuration takes less time to melt the solid PCM. The average melting rate is 17.03 g/min, and the melting preface enhancement is 3.55% for the bottom elongated fin compared to the no-fin situation.