TY - JOUR
TI - Numerical and experimental investigation for melting behavior of phase change material in the annulus of two concentric pipes
AU - Al-Hadithi Mustafa B
AU - Jalil Saad M
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2024
VL - 28
IS - 6
SP - 4605
EP - 4616
PT - Article
AB - The study analyzed numerically and experimentally the thermal performance and temperature evolution during the period of melting case of a PCM inside an annular space of concentric pipes. The inlet temperature of the working fluid, water, that flows to the inner pipe of the annulus was maintained at almost a constant temperature of 333 K higher than the melting point of the PCM. The mathematical model for the current 3-D coupled system was solved numerically by ANSYS FLUENT 2021 R1. The temperature at different positions in the system was measured under different mass-flow rates. The preliminary results indicated that there is a very good matching and agreement between the computational and the experimental findings relating to the temperature measurements. Different mass-flow rate cases are considered in the experiments ranging from 0.0952-0.0134 kg/s. This range of flow rates was utilized in running the experiments to obtain the required data. The results showed that there is a maximum variation, ranging from 3.4%-4.8%, between the numerical and experimental findings at the maximum mass-flow rate. This error is an acceptable limit for comparing the computational and experimental results in the present investigation.