Improving the melting performance in a triple-pipe latent heat storage system using hemispherical and quarter-spherical fins with a staggered arrangement

Azher M Abed; Hayder I Mohammed; Indrajit Patra; Jasim M Mahdi; Adeel Arshad; Ramaswamy Sivaraman; Raed Khalid Ibrahem; Fadhil Abbas Al-Qrimli; Sami Dhahbi; Pouyan Talebizadehsardari

doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.1018265

Improving the melting performance in a triple-pipe latent heat storage system using hemispherical and quarter-spherical fins with a staggered arrangement

Front Chem. 2022 Oct 11:10:1018265. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.1018265. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Techniques Engineering Department, Al-Mustaqbal University College, Babylon, Babylon, Iraq.
² Department of Physics, College of Education, University of Garmian, Kalar, Iraq.
³ National Institute of Technology Durgapur, Durgapur, West Bengal, India.
⁴ Department of Energy Engineering, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq.
⁵ Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
⁶ Department of Mathematics, Dwaraka Doss Goverdhan Doss Vaishnav College, University of Madras, Chennai, India.
⁷ Department of Medical Instrumentation Engineering Techniques, Al-Farahidi University, Baghdad, Iraq.
⁸ College of Engineering, Uruk University, Baghdad, Iraq.
⁹ Department of Computer Science, College of Science and Art at Mahayil, King Khalid University, Muhayil, Saudi Arabia.
¹⁰ Centre for Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains, Institute of Energy Futures, Brunel University London, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the melting characteristics of a phase change material (PCM) in a latent heat storage system equipped with hemispherical and quarter-spherical fins. A vertical triple-pipe heat exchanger is used as the PCM-based heat storage unit to improve the melting performance compared with a double-pipe system. Furthermore, the fins are arranged in inline and staggered configurations to improve heat transfer performance. For the quarter-spherical fins, both upward and downward directions are examined. The results of the system equipped with novel fins are compared with those without fins. Moreover, a fin is added to the heat exchanger's base to compensate for the natural convection effect at the bottom of the heat exchanger. Considering similar fin volumes, the results show that the system equipped with four hemispherical fins on the side walls and an added fin on the bottom wall has the best performance compared with the other cases with hemispherical fins. The staggered arrangement of the fins results in a higher heat transfer rate. The downward quarter-spherical fins with a staggered configuration show the highest performance among all the studied cases. Compared with the case without fins, the heat storage rate improves by almost 78% (from 35.6 to 63.5 W), reducing the melting time by 45%.

Keywords: hemispherical fins; latent heat storage; melting; phase change material; quarter-spherical fins; triple-pipe heat exchanger.

Publication types

Retracted Publication