TY - JOUR
TI - Phase change material solidification in a finned cylindrical shell thermal energy storage: An approximate analytical approach
AU - Mosaffa Amirhossein
AU - Talati Faramarz
AU - Rosen Marc A
AU - Tabrizi Hassan Basirat
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2013
VL - 17
IS - 2
SP - 407
EP - 418
PT - Article
AB - Results are reported of an investigation of the solidification of a phase  change material (PCM) in a cylindrical shell thermal energy storage with  radial internal fins. An approximate analytical solution is presented for two  cases. In case 1, the inner wall is kept at a constant temperature and, in  case 2, a constant heat flux is imposed on the inner wall. In both cases, the  outer wall is insulated. The results are compared to those for a numerical  approach based on an enthalpy method. The results show that the analytical  model satisfactory estimates the solid-liquid interface. In addition, a  comparative study is reported of the solidified fraction of encapsulated PCM  for different geometric configurations of finned storage having the same  volume and surface area of heat transfer.