Parametric investigations to enhance thermal performance of paraffin through a novel geometrical configuration of shell and tube latent thermal storage system

This paper presents a two-dimensional finite element computational model which investigates thermal behaviour of a novel geometrical configuration of shell and tube based latent heat storage (LHS) system. Commercial grade paraffin is used as a phase change material (PCM) with water is employed as a heat transfer fluid (HTF). In this numerical analysis, the parametric investigations are conducted to identify the enhancement in melting rate and thermal storage capacity. The parametric investigations are comprised of number and orientation of tube passes in the shell, longitudinal fins length and thickness, materials for shell, tube and fins, and inlet temperature of HTF. Numerical analysis revealed that the melting rate is significantly enhanced by increasing the number of tube passes from 9 to 21. In 21 passes configuration, conduction heat transfer is the dominant and effective mode of heat transfer. The length of fins has profound impact on melting rate as compared to fins thickness. Also, the reduction in thermal storage capacity due to an increase in fins length is minimal to that of increase in fins thickness. The influence of several materials for shell, tube and fins are examined. Due to higher thermal conductivity, the melting rate for copper and aluminium is significantly higher than steel AISI 4340, cast iron, tin and nickel. Similarly, the thermal storage capacity and melting rate of LHS system is increased by a fraction of 18.06% and 68.8% as the inlet temperature of HTF is increased from 323.15K to 343.15K, respectively. This study presents an insight into how to augment the thermal behaviour of paraffin based LHS system and ultimately, these findings inform novel design solutions for wide-ranging practical utilisation in both domestic and commercial heat storage applications.