Modeling of Solidification of CCHH (CaCl2, 6H2O) in a Shell-and-Tube PCM based Heat Storage Unit

Phase Change Material (PCM) based thermal energy storage plays a great role in the era of energy storage due to its high energy storage density and constant phase change temperature. In the present work, solidification behavior of CCHH has been studied numerically in a shell-and-tube PCM based heat storage unit. The enthalpy based 2-D numerical model for shell and tube PCM heat exchanger unit has been considered to study the solidification characteristics. The numerical model has been validated using experiments measuring the temperature variation with time at different locations in the numerical domain of PCM. The predicted isotherm plots clearly show the temperature distribution in the domain during solidification. The melt fraction plots with time are plotted to find out the solid and liquid fraction of the PCM in the numerical domain. The stream function plots with time reflect the solid and liquid zones in the numerical domain during solidification. A close agreement of numerical and experimental study of the solidification behavior of CCHH has been observed in the present study which improves in design of such devices. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.