Effect of multiple phase change materials (PCMs) slab configurations on thermal energy storage

The present work involves the use of a two dimensional control volume based numerical method to conduct a study of a combined convection-diffusion phase change heat transfer process in varied configurations of composite PCM slabs. Simulations were conducted to investigate the impact of using different configurations of multiple PCM slabs arrangements with different melting temperatures, thermophysical properties and varied sets of boundary conditions on the total energy stored as compared to using a single PCM slab. The degree of enhancement of the energy storage has been shown in terms of the total energy stored rate. The numerical results from the parametric study indicated that the total energy charged rate can be significantly enhanced by using composite PCMs as compared to the single PCM. This enhancement in the energy storage can be of great importance to improve the thermal performance of latent thermal storage systems. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.