Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Numerical investigation of PCM melting process in sleeve tube with

internal fins
Peilun Wang a,b, Hua Yao b, Zhipeng Lan b, Zhijian Peng a,⇑, Yun Huang b,⇑, Yulong Ding c
a
School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
c
Birmingham Centre for Thermal Energy Storage, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Due to the poor thermal conductivity of the Phase Change Materials (PCMs), heat transfer performance of
Received 5 September 2015 Latent Thermal Energy Storage (LTES) systems is usually unsatisfactory. In this work, a detailed numerical
Accepted 16 December 2015 study is carried out to analyze the impact of fin geometry (including fin-length, fin-ratio and the angle
Available online 31 December 2015
between neighbor fins) and outer tube conductivity on PCM melting process; the influence of the natural
convection in the horizontal sleeve-tube unit within the longitudinal fins is further examined. Results
Keywords: shows that small fin-ratio can reduce melting time, but not remarkably; the angle between neighbor fins
Fins arrangement
has little impact on melting process, however, there is an optimization of the angle between neighbor fins
Phase change material (PCM)
Natural convection
to reduce melting time in the full-scale unit. The outer tube conductivity has great impact on melting
Outer tube process whether considering the natural convection or not.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Ismail et al. [16] studied the effects of fin number, length, thick-
ness and the annular aspect ratio on the solidified mass fraction,
Over the last three decades, many studies are carried out on the complete solidification time and the energy storage capacity. They
Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system employed in solar, refrigera- found that the fin thickness has small impact on the solidification,
tion and temperature control system to store the surplus energy while the fin length as well as the number of fins have strong
when the supply and consumption do not match. Compared with impact on the solidification. They also pointed out that the fins
Sensible Thermal Energy Storage (STES), LTES with phase change had undesirable effects on the natural convection during the phase
materials offers a number of advantages such as quasi-isothermal change process. Seeniraj et al. [10] reported that the addition of
charging/discharging process and high energy density. Thus, the fins enhanced the energy storage process, and the fin and inner
LTES has great potential in the field of solar energy [1,2], building tube material with high thermal conductivity resulted in stronger
applications [3,4], heat load shifting [5] and electronics cooling enhancement in the sleeve-tube LTES unit. Kayansayan and Ali
components [6,7]. Though LTES unit serves as a better energy stor- Acar [17] investigated the effect of density and size of fins on the
age device, the PCMs loaded in the unit possesses a relatively low dynamic performance of the sleeve-tube unit and found that there
thermal conductivity, which limits the heat exchange performance. was almost no variation in the storage capacity in laminar flow
There are several methods to enhance heat transfer, such as conditions but a remarkable acceleration on the solidification.
extending surfaces, employing multiple PCMs, increasing thermal Besides, there was a jump in the stored energy when the denser
conductivity, and using micro-encapsulation of PCM [8]. Due to and longer fins were used. Agyenim et al. [18] studied the heat
the simple construction and easy processing, the sleeve-tube LTES transfer enhancement of circular and longitudinal fins on discharg-
unit has drawn great attention in the past decades [9–13]. And ing process of the sleeve-tube LTES unit and found that the longi-
extending fin surface is considered as an ideal way to enhance heat tudinal fins had better performance than circular fins both in
transfer, not only in the traditional heat transfer unit [14,15], but charging and discharging process. Ravi et al. [19] studied the heat
also in the LTES unit. transfer behavior of PCMs in circular tube within internal longitu-
dinal fins. The fin ratio and thermal conductivity of fin had strong
⇑ Corresponding authors. Tel.: +86 15910889256 (Z. Peng), +86 82544814 impact on the Nusselt number. Pakrouh et al. [20] optimized the
(Y. Huang). number, height and thickness of the pin fins, which could affect
E-mail addresses: pengzhijian@cugb.edu.cn (Z. Peng), yunhuang@ipe.ac.cn the phase change process. It is founded that the optimal case
(Y. Huang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2015.12.042
0196-8904/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435 429

Nomenclature

Symbols

u velocity vector, m/s
Amush mush room constant W fin thickness, mm
cp specific heat, J/(kg K)
g acceleration of gravity, m/s2
Greek symbols
h sensible enthalpy, J/(kg K)
a the angle between neighbor fins
H enthalpy/fin length, J/m
b thermal expansion, 1/K/liquid fraction
k conductivity, W/(m k)
q density, kg/m3
l feature size, m
l viscosity, m2/s
L latent heat, J/kg
P pressure, Pa
Ra Rayleigh number Subscripts
Sh hates related source term ref reference value
Si momentum sink ini initial value
Sb buoyancy source term f HTF value
t time, s PCM PCM value
T temperature, K s/l the physical property of PCM in solid/liquid phase

strongly depended on the fins’ number, height and thickness. Mat For the phase-change of the PCM, enthalpy-porosity approach is
et al. [21] studied the impact of fins on the melting process in a used, by which the porosity in each cell is set equal to its liquid
triplex-tube unit with PCM. They founded that there were no fraction.
significant difference among internal fin, external fin and The continuity equation:
internal–external fin in terms of the heat transfer enhancement,
@q !
but compared with unit without fins, the complete melting time þ r  ðq u Þ ¼ 0 ð1Þ
using internal–external fin was reduced by 43.3%. @t
All above studies about the utilization of fins to enhance heat The momentum equation:
transfer was in the same length with uniform arrangement in the
sleeve-tube LTES unit. Even with nonuniform fins arrangement, @ðquÞ
@t
þ rðq!
u uÞ ¼ rðlr  uÞ  @P
@x
þ Sx
ð2Þ
only the number of fins in the half bottom was studied [22]. @ðqv Þ
@t
þ rðq!
u v Þ ¼ rðlr  v Þ  @P
@y
þ Sy þ Sb
Besides, almost all of the studies about the sleeve-tube LTES unit
did not take into account the conductivity of outer tube, which The energy equation:
means that the thickness of outer tube had been neglected and
@

treated as adiabatic wall. In this article, the impact of fin !
ðqHÞ þ r  q u H ¼ r  ðkrTÞ þ Sh ð3Þ
arrangement and length-ratio on the melting rate of PCM was @t
studied. The enthalpy of the material is computed as the sum of the sen-
sible enthalpy, h, and the latent heat, DH:
2. Numerical modeling of the two-dimensional melting H ¼ h þ DH ð4Þ
problem Z T
h ¼ href þ cp dT ð5Þ
2.1. Physical model T ref

8
The computational domain of the symmetric model in two- >
<L T > Tl
dimensional is shown in Fig. 1. The sleeve-tube LTES unit is placed DH ¼ Lð1  bÞ T l > T > T s ð6Þ
horizontally. The inner radiuses of internal and external tubes are >
:
0 T < Ts
25 mm and 73.2 mm with the thickness of 2 mm and 3 mm respec-
tively and the thickness of fins is 1 mm. As shown in Fig. 1 where href, Tref, cp, L and h are reference enthalpy, reference temper-
(b) and (c), the fins scale has the relationship of H1 + H3 = 2- !
ature, specific heat, latent heat and sensitive heat of the PCM, and u
H2 = 69.3 mm and H2 = H3 = 46.2 mm for the four half-scale fins is the fluid velocity, b is the liquid fraction defined as b ¼ 0 if T < T s ,
and the three full-scale fins respectively. Due to the symmetry of b ¼ 1, if T > T l , and b ¼ ðT  T s Þ=ðT l  T s Þ; a, l and q are thermal
the sleeve-tube unit, only half of the unit is calculated. The grid fig- conductivity, viscosity and density of PCM respectively;
!
ure is shown in Fig. 2 and the grid number of no fin, four half-scale Sh ¼ @ðq@tDHÞ þ rðq u DHÞ is a phase related source term,
fins and three full-scale fins units are 4732, 4731 and 4764 respec-
Sb ¼ qgbðh  href Þ=cp is buoyance source term; Sx, and Sy, are
tively. The material properties of the tube and fins are shown in
momentum sink in the form of Si ¼ Amush ui ð1  bÞ2 =ðb3 þ eÞ, with
Table 1 and the thermophysical properties of PCMs are shown in
Amush = 105 in this study. The small constant e < 0.0001 is to prevent
Table 2.
division by zero.
The CFD software FLUENT was used to solve and calculate the
2.2. Simulation model governing equations. The power law differencing scheme and the
SIMPLE method for pressure–velocity coupling are used to solve
A computational domain, based on the axial symmetry of the the momentum and energy equations. Also the PRESTO scheme is
physical model, is defined, as shown in Fig. 2. The melting/solidifi- adopted for the pressure correction equation [23]. After a careful
cation model is adopted to simulate the melting process of the examination of the preliminary calculations, the time step was set
PCMs considering natural convection in the fined sleeve-tube unit. as small as 0.05 s. The convergence criterion was 105 for velocity
430 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435

Fig. 1. Schematic of the sleeve-tube LTES units (a) no fin; (b) four half-scale fins; (c) three full-scale fins.

Fig. 2. Grid figure ((a) no fin; (b) four half-scale fins; (c) three full-scale fins).

Table 1
Material properties of tube and fins. The interface between PCM and inner tube is coupled – wall
Property Aluminum Copper (inner tube boundary condition for heat transfer:
(outer tube) and fins)
Density, p (kg/m3) 2719 8978 T f ;wall ¼ T PCM ð7Þ
   
Thermal conductivity, k (W/(m K)) 202.4 387.6 @T f @T f  @T PCM @T PCM 
kf x þy ¼ kPCM x þy ð8Þ
@y pxffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi @x pxffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Specific heat, Cp (J/(kg K)) 871 381
@x 2 þy2 ¼27 mm @x 2 þy2 ¼27 mm

A constant temperature of the heating wall is prescribed as:

Table 2 T ¼ Tjpxffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 þy2 ¼25 mm
¼ 413:15 K ð9Þ
Thermophysical properties of PCMs.

Property Value The condition of outer surface of the external tube is insulated
boundary conditions as:
Phase change temperature, Ts/Tl (K) 393/394
 
Heat of fusion, L (kJ/(kg K)) 339.8
@T @T 
Specific heat of PCM, cp (kJ/(kg K)) 2.3 x þy ¼0 ð10Þ
Thermal conductivity of PCM, k (W/(m K)) 0.326 @x @y pxffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 þy2 ¼76:2 mm
Density of PCM, p (kg/m3) 1350
Thermal expansion, b (1/K) 0.001 The center line of the sleeve-tube unit is symmetric
boundary condition which is used in fins, PCM and inner and outer
tubes:
and continuity components and 109 for energy equation
respectively. ! @T @T
u ¼ 0; x þy ¼0 ð11Þ
@x @y
In the simulation, the initial temperature of the whole system is
2.3. Boundary and initial conditions 383.15 K, i.e. the PCM is slightly subcooled.
In the computational domain:
In the present simulations, the melting process of the !
sleeve-tube with inter fins heating from inner tube are presented. T ini ¼ 383:15 K; uini ¼ 0 ð12Þ
 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435 431

3. Verification and grid independence study 1.0

The present numerical code has been validated by many simu-

0.8
lation scenarios [24,25].
As shown in Fig 3, two works depict the reasonable agreement

Liquid fraction
between the experiment and numerical simulations. Thus, the pre- 0.6
sent method is validated to simulate the latent thermal storage
unit.
0.4
The power law differencing scheme and the SIMPLE method for grid size=0.7
pressure–velocity coupling are used to solve the momentum and grid size=0.8
energy equations and the PRESTO scheme is adopted for the pres- 0.2 grid size=1
sure correction equation. The relaxation factors for the momen- grid size=1.2
tum, pressure correction, energy, body forces and liquid fraction grid size=1.4
are 0.7, 0.3, 1, 1 and 0.9, respectively. The grid size independence 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 250
study has been performed. Five sizes of grids were compared with
Time (min)
fine structured mesh near the outer surface of inner tube to resolve
the thermal boundary layer, ranging as 0.7 mm, 0.8 mm, 1 mm, Fig. 4. Grid size independence.
1.2 mm and 1.4 mm, with the total number of grids 7132, 6292,
5452, 4732 and 3892. As seen from Fig. 4, the differences of the
simulation results in liquid fraction for five different grid sizes temperature of PCM was 30 °C. To reduce computational cost, only
are almost coincident with each other as the number of grids from a half of intersecting surface of the sleeve-tube was calculated.
3892 to 7132. In presented study, the grid size of 1.2 mm, which
can be regarded as grid independent, was chosen for further
numerical investigation. 4.1. Effect of adding fins on melting process

Fig. 5 compares the liquid fraction of PCM as a function of time

4. Result and discussion in the LTES units with no fin and 4 half-scale fins. It shows that
adding the fins have a remarkable effect on heat transfer enhance-
The solid PCM was initially subcooled at 383.15 K and the ment in the melting process, which was also given in Ref. [18] that
temperature difference between inner tube-wall and melting the utilization of fins has great impact on the reducing phase
change process, especially for the longitudinal finned unit. As
shown in Fig. 6 that the melted region is near the wall of inner tube
and fins in the early time, but the melted region expands outward
(a) 1.0 as time goes on, and more PCM melt in the 4 half-scale fins unit
than no fins unit due to the heat transfer enhancement. As seen
in Fig. 6, there appear vortices in both LTES units at 2000 s. Because
0.8
of more melted PCM in the 4 fins unit, the natural convection is
more intensified than that in no fin unit. The PCM in the upper
Liquid fraction

0.6 region has been melted completely at 10,000 s. The temperature

gradient near the phase change interface is large at that moment,
T=333K:5 fins[24] but the melting speed slows down as time going by because the
0.4
T=333K:1 fins[24] heat conduction to dominate the heat transfer has instead of natu-
T=333K:no fins[24] ral convection. The inflection point, of the four half-scale fins LTES
0.2 T=333K:5 fins(simulation) unit in Fig. 5, represents the point when the total melting speed
T=333K:1 fins(simulation) slows down as the upper region is almost melted completely. How-
T=333K:no fins(simulation) ever, there is no inflection point with no fins. This is because the
0.0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 melting speed of the no fins unit in up region is slower than that
Time (s)
1.0
(b) 1.0 no fins
4 fins
inflection point
0.8
0.8
Liquid fraction

0.6
0.6
2 min(simulation)
y/H

5 min(simulation)
0.4 8 min(simulation) 0.4
14 min(simulation)
2 min[25]
0.2 5 min[25] 0.2
8 min[25]
14 min[25]
0.0 0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0 50 100 150 200 250
x/W Time (min)

Fig. 3. Comparison of the numerical predictions with experimental results. Fig. 5. Liquid fraction of PCM.
432 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435

Fig. 6. Contours of liquid fraction and temperature gradient for no fins and 4 fins sleeve-tube LTES unit.

Table 3
of the 4-fins unit as shown in Fig. 6, resulting in the liquid fraction Conditions of three LTES unit groups.
curve of no fins unit is more smooth than that of the 4-fins unit.
Fins Fin length Outer tube a
number (mm) conductivity
4.2. Effect of fin-ratio on melting process
Group 1 3 46.2 No 30°, 60°, 90°,
120°
As discussed in Section 4.1, the reason of the slowing down of Group 2 3 46.2 Yes 30°, 60°, 90°,
melting speed is that the conduction starts to dominate the heat 120°
Group 3 4 34.65 Yes 30°, 45°, 60°,
transfer instead of the natural convection. Therefore, in order to
90°
increase melting speed of PCM, it is reasonable to prolong the fins
length in the bottom to increase heat transfer area. In this section,
a fins-ratio is defined as n = H1/H3 while the total length of fins 4.3. Effect of outer tube on melting with full-scale-fins at different a
H = H1 + H3 fixed (except for n = 0). Five cases of n which are 1, values
0.705, 0.486, 0.316, 0.182 and 0, were studied to find its impact
on the melting process. Fig. 7 shows that the complete melting In this section, three groups of LTES unit are studied numeri-
time increases monotonically with n. Decrease n represents the cally, as in Table 3:
increasement of H3 which increases surface area and enhances The three groups LTES unit have the same total fins length
heat transfer at the bottom of LTES unit. The complete melting (L = single fin length  fin number) which 34.65  4 = 46.2  3 mm.
time is reduced 23 min as n decreases from 1 to 0.182. There is a Fig. 8 presents the time evolution of the liquid fraction of group
sudden increasement when the value of n increases from 0 to 1 and 2 (3 full-scale fins unit). As shown in Fig. 8, the melting rate
0.182 and this is due to the n value increasing heat transfer area of PCM is higher in the 3 full-scale fins unit than 4 half-scale fins
(H = H3 when n = 0 which results in the decrease of the total length unit. When the fins connect with the outer tube, the heat can
of fins).

1.0

240 0.8
Complete melting time (min)

Liquid fraction

230 0.6

o
220 0.4 α = 30
o
α = 45
o
0.2 α = 60
210 o
α = 90
o
α = 120
0.0
200 0 50 100 150 200 250
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Time (min)
Fins-ratio
Fig. 8. The time evolution of liquid fraction of group 1 and 2 (the open and solid
Fig. 7. Melting time at different fin ratios. interior represent the LTES units of group 1 and 2 respectively).
 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435 433

Fig. 9. Cloud picture of the melting process of group 1 (left) and 3 (right) with 2 full-scale-fins.

transfer from the fins to the outer tube through conduction, which 60° and 90° to enhance heat transfer, when the conductivity of
drives the outer tube temperature higher than the phase change outer tube is considered.
temperature in the early melting period. Thus, as shown in Fig. 9, As seen in Fig. 10, the melting ratio is also affected by a values
the PCM near the outer tube melts in the early time. Fig. 9 presents when the fins connect with the outer tube and the best a value is
the time evolution of the PCM melting process of group 1 and 2 and 60° both for group 1 and 2. However, as shown in Fig. 10 of group 1
the left hand side of the liquid fraction contours is group 1 (4 half-scale fins), there is no noticeable change in the completely
(neglecting the conductivity of the outer tube) and the right hand melting time even the conductivity of outer tube is considered,
side is group 3 (considering the conductivity of the outer tube). As which means the a value almost has no impact on the melting pro-
shown in Fig. 9, the PCM between the fins melts completely at cess. It takes less time for group 1 to melt completely than group 3,
7500 s when a equals to 60°, but the PCM at upper side does not even if all of them have the same total fins length. That is to say,
melt completely when a equals to 90° at that moment in grope 2 long fins are far more efficient in enhancing heat transfer than sev-
in the right hand side. That is to say, the best value of a is between eral short fins.
434 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435

300 Group 1 80 As shown in Fig. 10, the HTE values varies with a values, which
Group 2 means the heat transfer enhancement of outer tube is different for
Comleted melting time (min)

Heat transfer enhancement/%

240
Group 3 different angle between neighbor fins. The highest HTE values
HTE 60 equal to 39.9% at a = 90° for the four a values in group 1 and 2.
However, HTE value equals to 49.9% for group 1 at a = 120° com-
180 paring with group 2 at a = 60°. So, the conductivity of out tube
40 and a values has great impact on melting process in the sleeve-
120 tube unit.
Fig. 11 shows the change trend of the liquid fraction at different
20 fins thickness in the full-scale sleeve unit. Four kinds of thickness,
60
which are 1 mm, 1.5 mm, 2 mm and 2.5 mm, are studied to find the
impact of fins on PCM melting process. As shown in Fig. 11, the
0 0 melting speed increases with fins thickness, but an increase in
20 40 60 80 100 120
fin thickness has only a slight improvement in the melting process
Degree (o)
even considering the conductivity of the out tube but more effec-
Fig. 10. Completed melting time for three group 1, 2 and 3 and heat transfer tive than the result form Ref. [26]. As discussed in Ref. [26], the liq-
enhancement between group 1 and 2. uid fraction curve of different fins thickness almost coincide with
each other and there was also no effect of fins thickness on the
melting process.
1.0
4.4. Effect of a value on melting process without taking account of
gravity
0.8

Fig. 12 shows the trend of liquid fraction for different a with 3

Liquid fraction

0.6 full-scale fins in LTES unit. As shown in Fig. 12, the melting speed
increases with a and a = 120° is the best fins arrangement when
the natural convection is not considered. However, it is opposite
0.4
when the natural convection is considered. As shown in Fig. 8,
W=1.0 mm when the natural convection is considered, a = 120° is the worst
W=1.5 mm value whether considering the heat conductivity of outer tube or
0.2
W=2.0 mm not. In general, PCM takes much more time to melt when the nat-
W=2.5 mm
ural convection is neglected. This is because that the key to accel-
0.0 erate melting process is to modify the melting process in bottom
0 50 100 150 200 250
part of the sleeve tube unit when the natural convection is being
Time (min)
considered. It is also shown in Fig. 12 that the outer tube conduc-
Fig. 11. The liquid fraction at different fin thickness in the full-scale sleeve-tube tivity has much more impact when the natural convection is
unit with a = 120°. neglected through comparing the curves of a = 120° and a = 120°
(adiabatic). The melting time would increase to 1200 min when
the heat conduction through the tube wall is neglected. So, the
1.0 conductivity of outer tube has a great impact on the melting pro-
cess of the 3 full-scale fins LTES unit, even if the natural convection
0.8 is neglected.
Liquid fraction

0.6 5. Conclusions

The melting process of PCM in sleeve-tube unit was numerically

0.4 α =30o
investigated in this study. The effects of the fin-ratio, fins included
α =60o
angle and outer tube conductivity on PCM melting process were
α =90o studied numerically with 2D assumption. The numerical model
0.2
α =120o was investigated by the published data, and the experimental
α =120o (adiabatic) and numerical results showed a good agreement, which indicates
0.0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 the proposed numerical model procedures are acceptable and the
Time (min) following conclusions can be drawn:

Fig. 12. The liquid fraction with 3 full-scale fins when natural convection neglected. (1) The heat transfer can be enhanced by adding half-scale fins
in the sleeve-tube LTES unit and the fin-ratio has effect to
The heat transfer enhancement (HTE) between group 1 and 2 is shorten melting time of PCM, but the effect of reducing
calculated as: fin-ratio to speed melting process is not remarkable.

completely melting time of group 1  completely melting time of group 2

HTE ¼  100%
completely melting time of group 1
 P. Wang et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 110 (2016) 428–435 435

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