International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 88 (2017) 211–219

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International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer

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

Numerical simulation and experimental verification of constrained melting MARK

of phase change material in inclined rectangular enclosures
Babak Kamkaria,⁎, Hamid Jahedi Amlashib
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yadegar-e-Imam Khomeini (RAH) Shahre-Rey Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the present study, melting of phase change material (PCM) in vertical and inclined rectangular enclosures is
Phase change material numerically investigated. Comparison of the numerical and experimental results reveals that the two-dimen-
Inclination sional numerical simulations of PCM melting in vertical enclosures can accurately predict both the liquid
Constrained melting fraction and the temporal evolution of the solid-liquid interface. Also, it well predicts the instantaneous values of
Lauric acid
liquid fractions for inclined enclosures (45° and 0°) with a maximum deviation less than 6.5%. Regardless of the
Stephan number, the complete melting time in 0° and 45° inclined enclosures are respectively about 52% and
37% shorter as compared to the vertical enclosure. Heat transfer enhancement and consequently melting rate
augmentation in inclined enclosures are found to be the result of the intensification of natural convection flows
and formation of thermal plumes originating from counter-rotating vortices. Moreover, to generalize the results,
a group of dimensionless numbers is introduced and used to develop three new correlations for prediction of the
instantaneous liquid fraction, energy storage and time-averaged Nusselt number in inclined enclosures.

1. Introduction unconstrained melting, the solid PCM descends to the bottom of the
container and heat transfer to the PCM occurs by both heat conduction
The latent heat thermal energy storage systems based on phase and natural convection. Heat conduction is the dominant mode of heat
change material (PCM) have gained increasing interest due to the ad- transfer through the thin film of liquid between the solid PCM and heat
vantages of high thermal energy storage density and small temperature transfer surface while natural convection exists at the bulk of the liquid
change during the melting and solidification processes. PCMs have PCM in the upper part of the enclosure [8–12]. During the constrained
great potential for integration with different thermal systems such as melting, the solid PCM is restrained from settling down to the bottom of
solar thermal collectors, solar cells, building air conditioning and the container and heat conduction plays a significant role only during
electronics. Besides the advantages of PCMs, the main drawback of the initial stage of melting while natural convection becomes the
these materials is their inherently low thermal conductivity decreasing dominant mode of heat transfer as the gap between the solid PCM and
the rate of heat transfer during the melting and solidification processes. container wall increases [13–15]. The strength of natural convection
In order to overcome this shortcoming of PCMs, various heat transfer flows in the liquid PCM depends on the geometry of the container and a
enhancement techniques have been proposed. These methods include group of nondimensional numbers, namely Rayleigh, Stefan, and
the use of fins [1], metal/graphite matrices [2], heat pipes [3,4], dis- Fourier. Also, the inclination of the container with respect to the
persed high-conductivity nanoparticles in the PCM [5], and micro- gravitational field affects the formation of natural convection flows and
encapsulation of PCM [6]. consequently changes the melting rate of the PCM [16,17]. One of the
It has already been proven that melting of PCM in an enclosure is a earliest studies addressing the melting of PCM in inclined enclosures
transient process controlled by two heat transfer mechanisms, heat was conducted by Webb and Viskanta [17]. They experimentally in-
conduction and natural convection [7]. The dominance of each of the vestigated melting of PCM in a rectangular enclosure at inclinations of
mentioned heat transfer mechanisms depends on the melting method of 0°, 30° and 60° with a fixed Stefan number. The results revealed that the
the PCM. Melting of PCM in enclosures can be categorized as un- melting rate of PCM is strongly dependent on the inclination angle of
constrained (close-contact or unfixed) and constrained (fixed), de- the enclosure. Sharifi et al. [18] examined the effect of tilting on
pending on the position of solid PCM in the container. During the melting behavior of PCM in a cylindrical enclosure. The experimental

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (B. Kamkari), [email protected] (H.J. Amlashi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2017.07.023

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B. Kamkari, H.J. Amlashi International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 88 (2017) 211–219

Nomenclature Greek symbols

Cp specific heat capacity, J/(kg K) α thermal diffusivity, m2/s

e thermal energy storage per kilogram of PCM, J/kg β thermal expansion coefficient, 1/s
αt
Fo =
H2
Fourier number γ liquid fraction
g gravity acceleration, m/s2 μ dynamic viscosity, kg/(m s)
H height of the enclosure, m ρ mass density, kg/m3
hSL latent heat of fusion, J/kg θ angle of inclination, degrees
k thermal conductivity, W/(m K) ΔH latent heat, J/kg
〈Nu〉 time-averaged Nusselt number
gβ (Tw − Tm ) H3 Subscripts
Ra = να
Rayleigh number
Ste∗ modified Stefan number
t time, s l liquid phase
T temperature, °C m melting temperature
u horizontal velocity component, m/s o initial
v vertical velocity component, m/s s solid phase
x horizontal Cartesian coordinate, m w wall
y vertical Cartesian coordinate, m

measurements showed that tilting the enclosure induces three-dimen-

sional convection currents in the liquid PCM. Allen et al. [19] experi-
mentally analyzed the melting and solidification of PCM in a cylindrical
enclosure with different combinations of heat transfer promoters in-
cluding heat pipe, copper rod, aluminum foil, and foam. It was observed
that the orientation of the container significantly alters the liquid
fraction histories during the melting process. However, during solidi-
fication, orientation has a minimal effect on the solidification rates due
to conduction-dominated heat transfer. Kousha et al. [20] studied the
effect of inclination angle (0° to 90°) on the thermal performance of a
shell and tube heat storage unit. Results indicated that the melting rate
in horizontal position is higher than the other inclinations.
The effect of inclination on thermal performance of PCM-based heat
sinks has also been explored by several researchers. Fok et al. [21] ex-
perimentally showed that thermal behavior of heat sink is slightly affected
by its inclination at low heating powers (less than 0.5 W/cm2). However,
they declared that the angle of inclination may become significant at
higher power levels. Similar findings were also observed by Wang et al.
[22] and Yang and Wang [23]. Lu et al. [24] reported that the thermal
performance of PCM-based heat sink varies by inclination angle when it is
Fig. 1. Schematic view of PCM enclosure.
operating under intense heat loads (about 2.5 W/cm2). Baby and Balaji
[25] experimentally studied the influence of orientation on thermal per-
formance of a metal foam heat sink filled with PCM. The results showed computational domain is a rectangle with a width of W = 5 cm and a
that the orientation has a marginal effect on the heat transfer performance height of L = 12 cm filled with Lauric acid as PCM. The right wall of
of heat sink but according to an investigation conducted by Lafdi et al. the cavity is set at a constant temperature (Tw) and the other walls are
[26] it was found that orientation of heat sink can greatly alter the heat adiabatic. The simulations are conducted at three different inclination
transfer performance of the metal foam heat sink saturated with PCM. angles of 90°, 45° and 0° for three different wall temperatures of 70, 60
The preceding review shows that studies on the effect of inclination and 55 °C. Table 1 presents the thermophysical properties of Lauric acid
angle on melting of PCM in rectangular enclosures are scarce. To the [27].
authors' knowledge, the only detailed experimental study on the con-
strained melting of PCM in an inclined enclosure (0° to 90°) under 2.2. Mathematical formulation
constant wall temperature has been conducted by Kamkari et al. [16].
The motivation of the present investigation is to simulate the con- The liquid PCM is assumed to be Newtonian and incompressible.
strained melting of Lauric acid in an inclined rectangular enclosure to The volume change during melting is neglected and thermophysical
further study the effect of natural convection flow structures on the properties for each of the solid and liquid states are constant. The
evolution of solid-liquid interface, heat transfer rate, and energy sto-
rage. Moreover, a group of dimensionless numbers is proposed and Table 1
correlations for prediction of instantaneous melt fraction, energy sto- Thermophysical properties of lauric acid [27].
rage and time-averaged Nusselt number are developed.
Specific heat capacity solid/liquid (kJ/kg K) 2.18/2.39
Melting temperature range (°C) 43.5/48.2
2. Problem statement and mathematical formulation Latent heat of fusion (kJ/kg) 187.21
Thermal conductivity solid/liquid (W/m K) 0.16/0.14
Density solid/liquid (kg/m3) 940/885
2.1. Physical model
Kinematic viscosity (m2/s) 6.7 × 10− 6
Prandtl 100.7
A schematic view of the physical model is illustrated in Fig. 1. The

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melting process is modeled using enthalpy-porosity approach [28]. In

this technique, the whole computational domain is considered as a
porous zone, in which the porosity is represented by the value of liquid
fraction (γ) varying between 0 and 1. Considering the above-mentioned
assumptions, the governing equations including continuity, mo-
mentum, and energy equations are as below:
Continuity:
∂ (ρu) ∂ (ρv )
+ =0
∂x ∂y (1)

x-momentum:

∂ (ρu) ∂ (ρuu) ∂ (ρuv ) ∂P ∂ ⎛ ∂u ⎞ ∂ ⎛ ∂u ⎞

+ + =− + μ + μ ⎜ ⎟
∂t ∂x ∂x ∂x ∂x ⎝ ∂x ⎠ ∂y ⎝ ∂y ⎠
+ ρgβ cos(θ)(T − Tm) + Au (2)
y-momentum:

∂ (ρv ) ∂ (ρuv ) ∂ (ρvv ) ∂P ∂ ⎛ ∂v ⎞ ∂ ⎛ ∂v ⎞

+ + =− + μ + μ ⎜ ⎟
∂t ∂x ∂x ∂x ∂x ⎝ ∂x ⎠ ∂y ⎝ ∂y ⎠
+ ρgβ sin(θ)(T − Tm) + Av (3)
Fig. 2. Comparison of numerical and experimental results of liquid fraction at the wall
Energy:
temperature of 70 °C for different inclination angles.
∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ⎛ ∂T ⎞ ∂ ⎛ ∂T ⎞
(ρCp T ) + (ρCp uT ) + (ρCp vT ) = K + K ⎜ − ST ⎟
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂x ⎝ ∂x ⎠ ∂y ⎝ ∂y ⎠ relative convergence criterion of 10− 7 is satisfied by all the field
(4) variables of the problem.
A comprehensive grid and time step independency study is under-
where,
taken to determine the optimum number of grid and time step size.
∂ ∂ ∂ After making sensitivity analyses, a grid size of 100 × 240 and a time
ST = (ρΔH ) + (ρuΔH ) + (ρv ΔH )
∂t ∂x ∂y (5) step of 0.05 s were found enough to keep the solution stable without too
long computational time.
In momentum equations, A is the porosity function defined by Brent The numerical model developed in this work was validated against
et al. [28] which makes the momentum equation mimic Carman- the experimental results reported by Kamkari et al. [16]. Fig. 2 com-
Kozney equations for flow in porous media: pares the liquid fractions between the numerical and experimental re-
(1 − γ )2 sults during melting of Lauric acid at the same initial and boundary
A = −C conditions for three different inclination angles of 0°, 45° and 90°. The
γ3 + ε (6)
maximum deviation between the experimental and numerical results
where C is mushy zone constant and ε is a small number to avoid di- for inclination angles of 0°, 45° and 90° are 6.5%, 5%, and 2.5%, re-
vision by zero. Herein, the values of C and ε are set to 5 × 106 and spectively.
10− 3, respectively. Liquid fraction, γ, is defined as below:

⎧0 if T < Tsolidus
3. Results and discussions
ΔH ⎪ T − Tsolidus
γ= = Tliquidus − Tsolidus if Tliquidus < T <Tsolidus
Lsf ⎨
⎪1 if T > Tliquidus (7) Figs. 3–5 illustrate the predicted temperature contours, streamlines
⎩
and the evolution of the solid-liquid interface at different inclination
The initial condition of the PCM is: angles of 90°, 45° and 0° for Ra = 8.3 × 108 (Tw = 70°C). Also, the shape
At t = 0 , T = 25°C and position of predicted interfaces are compared with the melting
The boundary conditions adopted for solutions of conservation photographs reported by Kamkari et al. [16]. In the melting photo-
equations are: graphs, the white and black colors represent the solid and liquid phases
of the PCM, respectively.
1. No slip boundary condition at the walls, u = v = 0 Fig. 3 shows the melting of PCM in the vertical enclosure (θ = 90°).
2. The right wall is isothermal, T = TW The initial stage of melting with the uniform recession of interface re-
∂T
3. The other walls are insulated, ∂n = 0 , where n is the normal direc- sembles the close contact melting in which the heat conduction is the
tion to the wall dominant heat transfer mechanism. As the thickness of liquid PCM in-
creases, a circulating convection current establishes and develops in the
2.3. Numerical procedure and validation liquid region. The liquefied PCM gains heat and rises along the hot wall.
Then it is deflected to the solid PCM as it reaches to the top wall of the
The above mentioned governing equations in conjunction with enclosure and descends along the interface while melting the solid PCM
boundary and initial conditions are discretized by a control volume and forming the curvilinear shape of the interface. At the final stage of
approach employing a staggered grid. Central difference and QUICK melting, the decrease in the density of streamlines at the upper part of
schemes are used to discretize the diffusion and convection terms, re- the enclosure demonstrates the weakening of convection flows and the
spectively. The SIMPLER algorithm is applied for the velocity-pressure formation of thermally stratified liquid layers. This region grows as the
coupling. A line-by-line solver based on a tridiagonal matrix algorithm solid PCM shrinks. A comparison between the numerical phase fields
(TDMA) is used to iteratively solve the resulting set of discretized al- and experimental images shows that both the position and shape of the
gebraic equations. An in-house code is developed in order to simulate solid-liquid interface are well captured by the two-dimensional simu-
the melting process. The iterative calculations are continued until a lation.

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Fig. 3. Instantaneous streamlines, phase field, temperature contours and photographs of PCM melting in the vertical enclosure at different times.

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Fig. 4. Instantaneous streamlines, phase field, temperature contours and photographs of PCM melting in the 45° inclined enclosure at different times.

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Fig. 5. Instantaneous streamlines, phase field, temperature contours and photographs of PCM melting in the horizontal enclosure at different times.

Fig. 4 depicts the melting of PCM in the enclosure inclined at 45°. Fig. 5 demonstrates the melting of PCM in the horizontal enclosure
Unlike melting in the vertical enclosure with the convex interface (Fig. 3), (θ = 0°). Streamlines and temperature contours show the formation of
melting in 45° inclined enclosure produces a concave interface due to the multiple small thermal plumes arising from the hot wall and impinging
formation of thermal plumes between two adjacent counter-rotating con- to the interface. The waviness of the interface is the result of the in-
vection cells. These plumes carry the hot liquid from the heated wall to the cidence of thermal plumes to the interface. As the liquid fraction in-
interface and increase the melting rate. At the early stage of melting creases, the small vortical flow structures merge with the neighboring
(t≤40 min), the predicted interface shapes and experimental images are in ones and grow in size. It was already mentioned in Fig. 2 that two-
good agreement. However, as the melting progresses, the thickness of the dimensional simulation can well predict the instantaneous values of
liquid increases and some discrepancies appears in the shape of the interface liquid fractions in the horizontal enclosure with a maximum deviation
between numerical and experimental results which is attributed to the es- less than 6.5%. It is also evident from Fig. 5 that the locations of the
tablishment of three-dimensional flow structures. interfaces are in good agreement with experimental images and

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Fig. 6. Comparison of time histories of maximum velocities for enclosures with different
inclination angles at the wall temperature of 70 °C.

discrepancies in the interface shapes can be referred to the initiation of

three-dimensional Benard convection cells in the liquid PCM.
To further evaluate the effect of inclination angle on the intensity of
convection flows, the time histories of maximum velocities are illu-
strated in Fig. 6 for different inclination angles at a wall temperature of
70 °C. It clearly shows that the maximum velocity increases by de-
creasing the inclination angle implying that the strength of convection
flows improves as the inclination angle of the enclosure reduces. For all
inclinations, the maximum velocity increases to a maximum value and
then decreases. During melting in the vertical enclosure, maximum
velocity rises until reaching a maximum value of 3.2 mm/s at
t = 55 min and then decreases gradually. The peak time (t = 55 min)
corresponds to the time that the top of the solid-liquid interface touches
the opposite wall of the enclosure. After that, the solid PCM shrinks and
the length of the interface decreases. Since the interface plays the role
of the cold surface in driving the convection flows in the enclosure, any
decrease in its length results in weakening of convection flows. Similar
explanations exist for melting in 45° inclined enclosure with a max-
imum velocity of 5.1 mm/s at t = 75 min. For melting in the horizontal
enclosure, the maximum velocity rises steeply until near the end of the
melting process to a maximum value of 8.8 m/s and then decreases
sharply when the liquid PCM approaches the top wall of the enclosure.
Fig. 7(a) compares the variation of the liquid fractions with time for
different inclination angles and Stefan numbers. In the present study,
the initial temperature of the solid PCM is 20 °C below the melting
temperature. Therefore, a modified Stefan number, Ste∗, is defined
which involves sensible heating of both solid and liquid phases of the
PCM [3].
Cp, s (Tm − To) + Cp, l (Tw − Tm )
Ste∗ =
hSL (8)

Herein, Stefan numbers of 0.36, 0.43 and 0.55 correspond to wall

temperatures of 55, 60 and 70 °C. Fig. 7(a) clearly shows that at a fix
Stefan number, melting time decreases with reducing the inclination
angle. For a Stefan number of 0.55, melting time for 90°, 45° and 0° are
200, 125 and 95 min, respectively. Regardless of the Stephan number,
the melting time for 0° and 45° inclined enclosures are respectively
about 52% and 37% shorter as compared to the vertical enclosure. Heat Fig. 7. Generalized results for liquid fractions at various inclination angles and Stefan
numbers: (a) liquid fraction versus time; (b) liquid fractions versus Ste∗ 2FoRa0.25; (c) li-
transfer enhancement and consequently melting time reduction in in-
quid fraction versus Ste∗ 2FoRa0.25χ.
clined enclosures is attributed to the intensification of convection flows
and formation of thermal plumes. Also, for the same inclination angle,

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Fig. 8. Generalized results for thermal energy storage at various inclination angles and
Stefan numbers.

with increasing the Stephan number the melting time decreases. Fol-
lowing the dimensional analysis applied by Kamkari et al. [29], an
appropriate combination of dimensionless numbers of Fourier, Stefan,
and Rayleigh is used to correlate the liquid fractions. Fig. 7(b) plots the
liquid fractions versus Ste∗ 2FoRa0.25 for different inclination angles and
Stefan numbers. The product of Ste∗ 2Fo takes into account the transient
heat conduction and phase change and Ra0.25 includes the effect of
natural convection on melting process. It can be seen in Fig. 7(b) that
compared to Fig. 7(a), liquid fractions correspond to each inclination
angle that come together. However, they are still separated when the
inclination angle varies. In an attempt to propose a general correlation
including all inclination angles and Stefan numbers another parameter
should be added to consider the effect of inclination angles on the
melting rate. It was found that the data can be well correlated by adding
0.8
the parameter of χ = { 1 + Cos1.5 (θ)
exp(1.5 + Fo) } to the group of dimensionless
numbers. Fig. 7(c) shows that the liquid fractions coincide on a single
curve when they are plotted versus Ste∗ 2FoRa0.25χ. In the present study,
a nonlinear regression analysis was performed to fit an equation to all
data presented in Fig. 7(c) as follows:

LF = −1.258X 3 + 0.906X 2 + 1.362X (9)

Fig. 9. Generalized results for time-averaged Nusselt numbers at various inclination an-
∗2
where X = Ste FoRa χ. This equation can predict the liquid fractions
0.25
gles and Stefan numbers: (a) time-averaged Nusselt numbers versus Rayleigh number; (b)
with a root mean square error of 0.018 and R2 = 0.996. time-averaged Nusselt numbers divided by 1 + cos(θ) versus Rayleigh number.
The same approach applied for correlating the liquid fractions is
used to generalize the energy storages. Fig. 8 shows the instantaneous 〈Nu〉
energy storages normalized by Ra0.04hsl versus Ste∗ 2FoRa0.25χ. The en- = 0.021Ra0.364
1 + cos(θ) (11)
ergy storages for all cases are correlated by the following equation:
e
= −0.131X 3 − 0.280X 2 + 1.128X 4. Conclusions
Ra0.04hsl (10)

where e is the thermal energy storage per kilogram of PCM. For this To further deepen the understanding of the thermal behavior of PCM
correlation, the root mean square error and R2 are equal to 0.011 and 0. during melting in inclined rectangular enclosures, a numerical simulation
99, respectively. was conducted and the results compared to the experimental data. Lauric
Fig. 9(a) shows the variation of time-averaged Nusselt number with acid as a high Prandtl number PCM was used in this study. Simulations were
Rayleigh number for different inclination angles. It clearly illustrates performed for enclosures with inclination angles of 90°, 45° and 0° at three
that time-averaged Nusselt numbers increase by decreasing the in- different modified Stephan numbers of 0.36, 0.43 and 0.55. The following
clination angle. As it is shown in Fig. 9(b), it was found that time- concluding remarks can be drawn from the obtained results:
averaged Nusselt numbers can be well correlated if they are divided by
1 + cos(θ). The following equation predicts the variation of time- • In vertical enclosure (θ = 90 ), two-dimensional numerical simula-
°

averaged Nusselt number with Rayleigh number for different inclina- tions can accurately predict both the liquid fractions and interface
tion angles with a root mean square error of 0.451 and R2 = 0.991. shapes.

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