NUMERICAL STUDY FOR OBTAINING THE REASON OF THE FINAL APPEARANCE OF A FLIP IN THE FUSION PROCESS OF PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL (PCM)

• Autor(a) principal: Becker, Fábio
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Oliveski, Rejane de Césaro, Rocha, Luiz Alberto Oliveira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Interdisciplinar de Pesquisa em Engenharia
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/ripe/article/view/19149
• topic: Phase change material (PCM). Numerical simulation. Optimization. Aspect ratio.; Material de mudança de fase (PCM). Simulação numérica. Otimização. Razão de aspecto.

With the increasing use of renewable energy sources, several studies on the use of phase change materials (PCM) have gained worldwide prominence. Many of these focus on their use in cavities. For an internally finned rectangular cavity containing the lauric acid PCM in the melting process, this work aims to verify the influence of the fin aspect ratio, as well as, by geometric optimization, determine the optimum aspect ratio, which will minimize the time of the PCM melting process. For the cases studied, the fin is positioned horizontally in the center of the right wall of the cavity, its dimensions being altered by varying its aspect ratio, for a fraction area of 0.01. Numerical simulations were performed in Fluent software, with the mathematical model based on equations of mass conservation, momentum and energy conservation. In the phase change process the enthalpy-porosity model was used. The mathematical and numerical models were validated based on experimental results obtained from the literature. The computational meshes were evaluated through the GCI method, where it obtained an index of 1.9 % in relation to the mesh used. The results of liquid fraction as a function of time showed that there was a reduction of approximately 19 % in the total time of the PCM fusion process, between the aspect ratios of 0.026 and 0.6, respectively. Thus, for this study, the lowest aspect ratio was obtained as the optimal aspect ratio for the fin.