Effect of cavity shape and heat source/sink orientation on PCM melting

Abstract

Phase change material (PCM) is considered as heat absorber to remove heat from the heat source by melting through latent heat. 2D numerical model has been developed to investigate the melting of PCM within the cavity by using ANSYS. The melting of PCM is investigated for different shapes of cavity while the area of the cavity and the dimensions of heat source and sink are kept same. Seven different geometrical shapes and heat source/sink orientations are examined to obtain the maximum melting of the PCM within the cavity. The results show that the shape of the heat source is much more influential than the shape of the cavity. In addition to that placing the circular heat source in the circular cavity along with the adiabatic boundary conditions improves the melting of the PCM. In fact, the melting of the PCM increases from 60% to around 97% with the circular heat source within the circular cavity. The results suggest that the wrap up the heat source with PCM of desired melting point along with proper insulation may helpful in heat removal processes from electronic devices or other appliances. The numerical model is validated with the available literature and showed good agreement.