Numerical Study on Solidification of Phase Change Materials Embedded with Metal Foam

Abstract

This work investigates the solidification of phase change material (PCM) embedded with metal foam (MF) in a spherical capsule which its outer layer is exposed to convective heat transfer. The one-dimensional energy equation is resolved by performing finite volume method accompanied with temperature transforming technique. Four separate scenarios are developed for different porosity value of MF in order to analyze the thermal behavior of composite PCM with MF. The numerical model is validated by experimental data taken from the literature and substantially good agreement is demonstrated. The results show that at the case where the porosity ε =0.92, the elapsed time for complete solidification is decreases by 88% compared to the case without MF (ε =1.0).

Numerical analysis of phase change material filled with metal foam inside a cylindrical capsule

“…In our previous studies 19,20 we analyzed numerically using the control volume approach with temperature transform method the inward solidification inside a spherical capsule with no melting temperature as initial conditions to investigate the impact of convective heat transfer at the outer surface of the capsule. The numerical results, which were experimentally validated, demonstrate that the greater diameter of the containers achieves higher solidification time with an increase of the entropy generation.…”

“…In our previous work, 19 we used the temperature transforming method (TTM) to simulate the inward solidification in a spherical capsule. Furthermore, in Reference [20], we used Aluminum as MF to investigate the thermal performance of the thermal energy storage (TES) system. This work focuses on the use of a cylindrical geometry for the TES system and the PCM integrated with MF are filled within the cylindrical container.…”

Numerical simulation of thermal energy storage system inside a spherical capsule under periodic boundary conditions

“…Ismail and Henriquez 8 analyzed the influence of the internal radius of the sphere, the temperature of the heat transfer fluid, and the Biot number on the solidification rate of PCM inside a spherical container. Asker and Genceli 9 embedded metal foam in PCM to examine the solidification of PCM inside the spherical container. They reported that the time for total solidification is significantly dropped by using metal foam.…”