Heat transfer characteristics of D-mannitol as a phase change material for a medium thermal energy system

Melting process and heat transfer characteristics of d-mannitol were investigated experimentally and numerically to construct a fundamental database of the waste heat recovery systems for ships. d-Mannitol which has relatively high latent heat was selected in this study as a phase-change material for medium thermal energy storage. Experimental results indicate that the melting temperature and latent heat of d-mannitol were affected by the heating rate. The weight of d-mannitol did not decrease with the increase in temperature between 436 and 455 K. Moreover, numerical simulation was conducted using the commercial CFD code, ANSYS FLUENT. On the basis of the numerical simulation, melting process was affected by natural convection at the inner wall. As the heat flux of the cartridge heater input came from the inner wall, the liquid fraction increased from the inner wall to the outer wall through natural convection. The numerical result was compared with the experimental data. The temperature of the numerical simulation was approximately consistent with the experimental data. Moreover, the local heat transfer coefficients at the heater surface were calculated by the result of the numerical simulation. The heat transfer coefficients decreased during the phase change. It was considered that the heat transfer process changed from conductive heat transfer of solid state to natural convection heat transfer of liquid state as the liquid fraction increased with time.