engleski

Influence of fin number on paraffin melting and solidification in the longitudinally finned latent thermal energy storage

This paper presents a numerical study regarding the influence of the number of fins on heat transfer in the longitudinally finned shell-and-tube type LTES using paraffin as the PCM and water as the HTF. The appropriate mathematical model and numerical procedure have been defined and experimentally validated on the constructed LTES tank. Three LTES configurations have been numerically examined ; with 4, 8 and 12 fins. The results show that increasing the number of fins significantly increases heat transfer during both melting and solidification processes. Time at which the PCM is fully melted or solidified significantly reduces with the increase of fin number since heat transfer surface area is increased, which expedites heat transfer. While melting/solidification time can be significantly reduced by installing additional fins, adding fins can potentially reduce the amount of stored/released heat.

latent thermal energy storage ; paraffin melting and solidification ; fin number ; numerical investigation

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