Close-contact melting in vertical annular enclosures with a non-isothermal base: Theoretical modeling and application to thermal storage

Close-contact melting in a horizontal cylindrical enclosure with longitudinal plate fins: Demonstration, modeling and application to thermal storage

“…Additional parts include piping, stands, etc. A detailed description is presented in a previous work [14], hence only the essentially new particulars are given in detail here.…”

“…For this reason, the unit is installed horizontally. Two groups of experiments are performed, namely, with the unit shell exposed to ambient air, like in the literature, and with the unit shell exposed to a heated controlled environment, like in [14]. A transparent shell of the unit, including its flanges, allows to achieve visualization.…”

“…http Latent heat thermal storage units with radial (circumferential) arrays of fins have been comprehensively explored in the past, for both solidification and melting. A recent paper [14] surveys some representative examples [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Most recent papers address such diverse issues as comparison with pinned tubes [23], effectiveness analysis [24], and entropy generation [25].…”

“…Kozak et al [14] presented the first ever analysis of closecontact melting (CCM) effects in a storage unit with fins, built of a circumferentially finned inner tube concentric with a circular shell. It was demonstrated that CCM enhances significantly the heat transfer rate, shortening the melting time by almost 2.5 times in that specific laboratory-scale device.…”

Development of high melting temperature microencapsulated phase change material for compacted thermal energy storage bed

“…These systems also undergo buoyancy dependent stratification which tends to affect heat transfer processes. Various researchers have therefore explored the possibility of using phase change materials (PCMs) as storage media since they have much larger heat storage capacities than sensible heat materials [1][2][3][4]. However, repeated thermal cycling of pure PCMs does result in some drawbacks.…”