Electrohydrodynamic Enhancement of Phase Change Material Melting in Circular-Elliptical Annuli

Kun He, Lei Wang and Jiangxu Huang
Additional contact information
Kun He: School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Lei Wang: School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jiangxu Huang: School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 23, 1-20

Abstract: Phase change material (PCM) has received significant attention due to its great potential for thermal energy storage. However, the major undesirable property of PCM is related to its low thermal conductivity. In this work, the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) enhancement of PCM melting in circular-elliptical annuli is investigated numerically by using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The key motivation for our choice of the elliptical shape is due to the fact that the more curved elliptical surface corresponds to stronger charge injection strength, which may lead to stronger flow field, and the consequent increase of heat transfer rate. The influences of several non-dimensional parameters, including electric Rayleigh number T , thermal Rayleigh number ( R a ) and the aspect ratio ( A R ) of the inner ellipse are investigated in detail. Based on the numerical results, it is found that the radial electro-convective flow induced by the external electric field makes a significant contribution to the enhancement of melting heat transfer, and specially, the maximum time saving in some cases is more than 85 % . Moreover, we observe that when the Coulomb force is dominant over the buoyancy force, no matter the inner elliptical tube is oriented horizontally or vertically, the total melting times in these two cases are nearly the same, and the melting performance obtained for the circular electrode is usually better than the other cases. However, when the flow regime is dominated by the buoyancy force, the use of a slender vertical-oriented elliptical electrode instead of the circular one is more efficient.

Keywords: electrohydrodynamic; PCM melting; elliptical electrode (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/23/8090/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/23/8090/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:23:p:8090-:d:694113

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().