EFFECT OF FINS ON ENHANCING ICE FORMATION IN COLD STORAGE APPLICATIONS
Kamal Ismail1; Priscila Silva1; Fátima Lino1; Claudia Nóbrega1
1 UNICAMP
Resumo
Phase change materials (PCMs) are attractive options as thermal energy storage media due to their reduced storage volume and isothermal behavior during charging and discharging processes. Their main drawback is the slow thermal response due to the low thermal conductivity. Various methods for PCM thermal conductivity enhancement have been investigated by many researchers. The present study has the objective of investigating fins to meliorate the thermal performance of PCM storage systems. The formulated model for the horizontal radial finned tube is based on pure conduction in the PCM, the enthalpy approach was used and the resulting equations were treated by the finite difference technique. The numerical code is optimized and the numerical predictions were validated against experimental results. Comparisons with the results of a bare tube show the beneficial effect of fins on enhancing the thermal behavior during phase change process by increasing the position and velocity of the interface and consequently the solidified mass fraction and stored energy.
Palavras-chave: Finned tube; Latent heat storage system; PCM; Phase change; solidification; Thermal conductivity enhancement