Solar thermal energy discharging from a multiple phase change materials storage tank

In this work we have studied numerically the charging and the discharging of solar thermal energy stored (TES) using latent heat from a storage unit contains PCMs. We have also studied the improvement of the heat transfer between fluid which is the water and the PCMs by adding the fins to our storage unit with various configurations, including in-line fins and staggered fins. Then, we studied the assembly of two PCMs in our storage unit. In addition, an experimental work has been validated. The ANSYSFLUENT 15 code was used to solve the formulation of the fusion/solidification processes, where three users define have been developed to describe the thermo-physical properties of the PCMs. © 2017, Allerton Press, Inc.