A numerical study on the impact of fin length arrangement and material on the melting of PCM in a rectangular enclosure

This article presents a numerical analysis on enhancing the melting process of phase change material (PCM) in a rectangular enclosure using flanged fins (T-shaped). A double fin arrangement with upper (Lu) and lower (Ld) fins is employed, and various cases based on fin length ratio (Lu/Ld) and material are examined with no-fin PCM enclosure. Copper (Cu), Aluminium (Al) and Carbon steel (C-steel) are selected as the fin material. To assess the effect of flanged fins, five indicators are used; total melting time (tm), total stored energy (Et), average Nusselt number (Nu), mean power (Pm), and cost per mean power (Cpw). The result shows that a high PCM melting rate is observed for a low Lu/Ld ratio, and high thermal conductivity. Hence, Cu fins with Lu/Ld ratio of 0.25 resulted in the high melting, and the tm reached a value of 4050, which is 48.36% less than the no-fin PCM enclosure. While, the Cpw is minimum (0.4 $/W) for both Cu and Al fin at Lu/Ld of 0.25. Overall, Cu fins outperforms other cases and is then further optimized on the variation of Lu/Ld ratio, and flanged to web ratio (Lf/Lu, d ). The optimization concludes that a single flanged fin placed at the lower end of the container with Lf/Ld of 0.55 has the minimum tm (2338 s) and Cpw (0.229 $/W). (c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.