Natural convection heat transfer from a vertical flat plate with phase change material suspensions

A numerical model has been developed for laminar natural convection heat transfer from an isothermal vertical flat plate with a phase change material suspension as the heat transfer medium. Results show that the use of phase change material suspensions can increase the Nusselt number by as much as 8 times compared to a single phase fluid. The dominant parameters affecting the heat transfer are found to be the Prandtl number, the Rayleigh number, the volumetric concentration of the phase change material, the plate length to particle radius ratio and the bulk Stefan number. Other parameters, the particle to fluid thermal conductivity ratio, the Archimedes number, the Schmidt number and the buoyancy ratio do not have a significant effect on the heat transfer.