Numerical analysis on performance of naphthalene phase change thermal storage system in aluminum plate-fin unit

This paper presents a numerical simulation for the prediction of time, temperature and liquid fraction during the melting and solidification process in the latent heat storage of phase changed materials (PCM). The mathematical model, regarding the solid–liquid phase change heat transfer based on the enthalpy formulation, has been proposed. Naphthalene was used as the PCM which is contained in up layer of plate-fin thermal storage. Transient simulations were performed using a commercial computational fluid dynamics package, Fluent, based on the finite volume method. This computational model endeavored to describe both the melting and solidification processes of the PCM. A series of numerical calculations have been done in order to analyses the influence of several heat transfer fluid operating conditions and several fin geometric parameters on the thermal storage unit. Numerical results, which could be used for operating conditions and geometry optimization, provide guideline for the design of the latent thermal energy storage system.