Thermal analysis for solidification of PCM including nanoparticles within a container

To expedite the freezing of PCM, inclusion of nano-powders and apply of fins were scrutinized in this work. The base PCM is water and nano-sized material (CuO) was added. Simulations with assumptions of neglecting gravity force and neglecting the slip velocity of nanomaterial were presented via Galerkin approach. In this modeling, variable grid with adaption with place of solid front was applied and quantity of time step has been designated automatically to reach lower computational price. Verification procedure showed a good agreement of present numerical simulation and selecting such assumptions were verified, too. With increasing shape factor, the time of converting whole water to ice, declines about 5.49%. Also, raising the concentration of CuO leads to reduction of time of process around 11.1%.

Automated summary

This study investigates the use of nano-powders and fins to expedite the freezing process of phase change materials. Water is used as the base material, with the addition of nano-sized CuO particles. Simulation results show that increasing the shape factor and concentration of CuO can significantly reduce the freezing time.