Investigation of LHTESS filled by Hybrid nano-enhanced PCM with Koch snowflake fractal cross section in the presence of thermal radiation

Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage Systems (LHTESS) can be employed to store large amount of energy. Present research deals with solidification process of Hybrid nano-enhanced Phase Change Material (HNEPCM) in a thermal storage system with Koch snowflake inner cross section, considering the effect of thermal radiation. In order to enhance the thermal conductivity of water which is considered as phase change material, TiO2 - Cu Hybrid nanoparticles are added. Standard Galerkin Finite Element Method (FEM) along with adaptive mesh are employed to simulate the solidification process. Nanoparticles shape factor, radiation parameter and fractal pattern iteration are the key parameters which affect the solidification process in this study. Results depicted that increasing all these parameters results in decreasing the average temperature and total energy of the system, while the solid fraction experiences higher values, which causes the solidification process to be accelerated. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.