Effect of position of heat transfer fluid tube on the melting of phase change material in cylindrical thermal energy storage

The influence of the orientation of heat transfer fluid tube inside the horizontal cylindrical phase change material based thermal storage is experimentally investigated. The storage container is made up of a polycarbonate tube and filled with paraffin wax as a storage medium. The operating parameters are the fluid inlet temperature and flow rate. The fluid is water and the flow tube are made up of copper. The HTF is used at a temperature of 60 degrees C and a flow rate of 2, 4 and 6 kg/min to charge the PCM. In the horizontal configuration, the angular HTF is observed with the 21.42% lesser charging time compared with the concentric configuration at the HTF flow rate of 2 kg/min. Thus, the effect of orientation of HTF tube is beneficial to achieve the faster charging of PCM for the solar thermal collectors which are operating at the intermittent solar radiations.