Heat transfer of solid–liquid phase-change material suspensions in circular pipes: Effects of wall conduction

This article considers the problem of conjugate heat transfer in circular pipes with finite heated length to examine the effects of wall conduction on the heat transfer characteristics of solid–liquid phase-change material suspension flow. A mixture continuum approach is adopted in the formulation of the energy equation, with an approximate enthalpy model describing the phase-change process in the phase-change material particles. From numerical simulations via the finite-volume approach, it was found that the conduction heat transfer propagating along the pipe wall results in significant preheating of the suspension flow in the nondirectly heated region upstream of the heated section, where melting of the particles may occur and therefore the contribution of the latent heat transfer to convection heat dissipation over the heated section is markedly attenuated. Contributions of the sensible and latent heat transfer to the total heat transfer rate of the suspension flow over the heated section were delineated quantitatively for various sets of the relevant dimensionless parameters, including the particle volumetric concentration, the modified Stefan number, the Peclet number of suspending fluid, the wall thickness ratio, and the wall-to-fluid thermal conductivity ratio.