Thermal Performance Analysis of Paraffin Wax in a Vertical Cylindrical Container Using Modified Helical Heat Transfer Tubes

Abstract

Solar energy is available plenty. Hence, trapping and storing it for later use could lead to sustainability. Solar energy is intermittent; hence, an energy storage material is needed to supply energy during nonavailability. Phase change material (PCM) store thermal energy under nearly isothermal condition. Because of isothermal phase change and large latent heat, these materials are used extensively in solar energy storage. Though these materials can store large latent heat, it suffers from poor thermal conductivity leading to less heat storage/release rate. This study uses simple heat transfer tube (HTT) modification to enhance PCM heat storage/release rate. It is done by studying its fusion characteristics in an upright cylindrical thermal energy storage (TES) container and using helical HTT. Three configurations are used to expedite PCM fusion: varying coil spacing and placing small conical and helical coil HTT near the bottom center in a vertical TES container. Different coil spacing is segmented into: fully expanded (FE); semi-compressed (SC); and fully compressed (FC) configurations. The configurations (coil spacing, conical, and helical) are placed in three separate TES containers with varying dimensions to study PCM fusion newline