Numerical Investigation of Melting Nano-enhanced Phase Change Materials (NEPCM) in Triangular Enclosure

This paper presents a numerical study of melting of nano-enhanced phase change materials (NEPCM) inside a triangular container using N-eicosane and copper particles as base material and nano particle, respectively. Nanoparticles are used in the process of heat transfer and improve the lubrication performance. Numerical studies are performed for three different Stefan number (0.05, 0.2, 0.1). To investigate the effect of nanoparticles on the heat transfer rate, various particles of copper nanoparticles have been added to the base phase change materials. A transient numerical simulation is performed to melt inside the triangular. Phase change materials in liquid and solid states were studied. The increase in the performance of the heat transfer of nanoparticles in the solid state was more than the liquid state in the laminar flow and the natural convection heat transfer. Also, the effect of entropy has been investigated. The simulation results show that the nanoparticles cause an increase in thermal conductivity of NEPCM compared to conventional PCM. Increasing thermal conductivity by reducing the latent heat increases the rate of melting of nanoparticles. The time of the melting of the phase change material has significantly decreased with increasing nanoparticles. Increasing the thermal conductivity effective in reducing the entropy production of the system is much more than the reduction of the specific heat and the heat of fusion of nano-enhanced phase change materials.