TY - JOUR
T1 - Numerical investigation of melting of a phase-change material in H-type shell tubes
AU - Chueh, Chih Che
AU - Hung, Shao Che
N1 - Funding Information:
The research is made through the funding and support from the Headquarters of University Advancement at the National Cheng Kung University, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, and from the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), Taiwan, under grant numbers: MOST 108-2218-E-006-028-MY3 and MOST 111-2221-E-006-102-MY3. Any opinions, findings and conclusions for recommendations given in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the NSTC. The authors express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments greatly enhanced the manuscript's quality.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2024/1/5
Y1 - 2024/1/5
N2 - This study aims to numerically investigate the melting process of a phase change material in an H-type finned concentric shell tube configuration. The H-type fins are arranged in a manner that creates an annulus structure consisting of six identical H-type fin structures. These fins are evenly spaced with equal distances between them. The phase change material used in this study is RT42, which is stored within the annulus structure to absorb heat from the inner circular tube at a constant temperature input of 70 °C. The results of the study demonstrate that the phase change material within the H-type fin tube, with a uniform width of 3 mm, exhibit significantly faster melting rates compared to narrower fin tubes. Specifically, the phase change material in the 3 mm fin tube demonstrate melting rates that are 88% and 32% higher than those observed in fin tubes with widths less than 1 mm and 2 mm, respectively. Furthermore, the study considers two additional geometric factors, namely the varying curvy angles of the first and second circular layers of the H-type fins. Melting behavior is numerically featured by varying the ratios of these curvy angles within the range of 0.68 to 1.53. Among all the H-type annulus structures of the present study, the ratio of 1.21 is the most suitable design for increasing the total energy stored, while the ratio of 1.32 is an adequate choice for improving melting performance. Additionally, the latter ratio results in a 1.68 times reduction in melting time compared to the ratio of 1. Properly arranged H-type fin structures are possibly considered a preferable design that can either enhance heat transfer or increase the total stored energy, possibly expanding PCM applicability to a more latent heat thermal energy storage systems of practical interest.
AB - This study aims to numerically investigate the melting process of a phase change material in an H-type finned concentric shell tube configuration. The H-type fins are arranged in a manner that creates an annulus structure consisting of six identical H-type fin structures. These fins are evenly spaced with equal distances between them. The phase change material used in this study is RT42, which is stored within the annulus structure to absorb heat from the inner circular tube at a constant temperature input of 70 °C. The results of the study demonstrate that the phase change material within the H-type fin tube, with a uniform width of 3 mm, exhibit significantly faster melting rates compared to narrower fin tubes. Specifically, the phase change material in the 3 mm fin tube demonstrate melting rates that are 88% and 32% higher than those observed in fin tubes with widths less than 1 mm and 2 mm, respectively. Furthermore, the study considers two additional geometric factors, namely the varying curvy angles of the first and second circular layers of the H-type fins. Melting behavior is numerically featured by varying the ratios of these curvy angles within the range of 0.68 to 1.53. Among all the H-type annulus structures of the present study, the ratio of 1.21 is the most suitable design for increasing the total energy stored, while the ratio of 1.32 is an adequate choice for improving melting performance. Additionally, the latter ratio results in a 1.68 times reduction in melting time compared to the ratio of 1. Properly arranged H-type fin structures are possibly considered a preferable design that can either enhance heat transfer or increase the total stored energy, possibly expanding PCM applicability to a more latent heat thermal energy storage systems of practical interest.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2023.121470
DO - 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2023.121470
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85170413662
SN - 1359-4311
VL - 236
JO - Applied Thermal Engineering
JF - Applied Thermal Engineering
M1 - 121470
ER -