Solidification enhancement of phase change material implemented in latent heat thermal energy storage

The emphasis of this current study is to perform a numerical simulation of the solidification behaviour of phase change material for the latent heat thermal storage unit has shell and tube design in order to improve the thermal performance of the latent heat storage unit. A comparison has been carried out for the storage unit using two different alignment, essentially, horizontal and vertical for two configurations plane one (non-finned) and finned one. The outcome results were compared with the experimental results in order to validate the model. Moreover, the transit temperature profile was also presented in this study to get a better understanding for this particular process. The predicated results were shown a good agreement with experimental data that used. The results indicated that when fins is installed solidification process time enhanced with an average percentage of 60% the effect of alignment during solidification process is insignificant for both cases of finned and plane LHSU. It is worth to mention that this study can be used to improve the understanding the thermal performance of the phase change material and to reduce the efforts of the experiential trails in the future investigations.