Title: Study of solidification performance of PCM in a triplex-tube thermal energy storage system with double Y-shaped fins

Authors: Jun Du; Menghan Li; Fan Ren

Addresses: School of Energy and Power, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China ' School of Energy and Power, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China ' School of Energy and Power, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, China

Abstract: In this study, the phase change material is RT82, it has the disadvantages of low thermal conductivity, the Triplex-Tube Thermal Energy Storage System (TTESS) with double Y shaped fin is used to enhance heat conduction. In this paper, we used the commercial software FLUENT to study the influence of heat transfer fluid, fin material and fin structure parameters on the solidification process by evaluation indexes solidification time, heat release and PCM average temperature. The results show that when the fin length increases from 4 mm to 8 mm, the solidification time is reduced by 38.03%, the heat release in 180 s is increased by 4.21%, The fin width increased from 0.5 mm to 1.5 mm, the heat release in 180 s decreased by 5.03% and the solidification time of PCM decreased by 7.27%. Reasonable fin angle, HTF temperature and high-thermal conductivity fin material can also improve the heat transfer of the solidification process.

Keywords: double Y-shaped fin; triplex-tube thermal energy storage system; numerical simulation; solidification.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.2024.141895

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 2024 Vol.46 No.6, pp.543 - 566

Received: 16 Jul 2022
Accepted: 25 Jan 2023
Published online: 03 Oct 2024 *

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