Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Numerical study for enhancing the thermal conductivity

of phase change material (PCM) storage using high
thermal conductivity porous matrix
Osama Mesalhy *, Khalid Lafdi, Ahmed Elgafy, Keith Bowman
University of Dayton Research Institute, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469, USA
Received 17 March 2004; accepted 24 June 2004
Available online 25 August 2004

Abstract
In this paper, the melting process inside an irregular geometry lled with high thermal conductivity porous matrix saturated with phase change material PCM is investigated numerically. The numerical model is
resting on solving the volume averaged conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy with phase
change (melting) in the porous medium. The convection motion of the liquid phase inside the porous matrix
is solved considering the Darcy, Brinkman and Forchiemer eects. A local thermal non-equilibrium
assumption is considered due to the large dierence in thermal properties between the solid matrix and
PCM by applying a two energy equation model. The numerical code shows good agreement for pure
PCM melting with another published numerical work. Through this study it is found that the presence
of the porous matrix has a great eect on the heat transfer and melting rate of the PCM energy storage.
Decreasing the porosity of the matrix increases the melting rate, but it also damps the convection motion.
It is also found that the best technique to enhance the response of the PCM storage is to use a solid matrix
with high porosity and high thermal conductivity.

2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Melting; Phase change material; Porous matrix; Energy storage; Thermal conductivity

Corresponding author. Address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Dayton, 336 Firwood
Drive F, Dayton, OH 45419, USA. Tel.: +1 937 229 3079; fax: +1 937 229 3433.
E-mail address: mesalhom@notes.udayton.edu (O. Mesalhy).
0196-8904/$ - see front matter
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2004.06.010

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

Nomenclature
A
cp
Da
d
d
dp
Fo
g
hsf
J
K
k
L
p
q
Ra
r
Ste
T
t
u
v
x
y
Greek
a
bf
v
d
e
n, g
q
Dt
C/
l

coecients in discretized equation

specic heat (J/kg K)
Darcy number (K/d2)
inner cylinder diameter
ber diameter (m)
pore diameter (m)
Fourier number (at/d2)
gravity acceleration (m/s2)
interfacial heat transfer coecient (W/m2 K)
transformation Jacobian
permeability (m2)
thermal conductivity (W/m K)
latent heat of fusion (J/kg)
static pressure (Pa)
heat ux (W/m2)
Rayleigh number (gbDTd3/am)
radius (m)
Stefan number (cpDT/L)
temperature (K)
time (s)
velocity in x direction (m/s)
velocity in y direction (m/s)
distance in x direction
distance in y direction
letters
thermal diusivity (m2/s)
thermal expansion coecient (1/K)
tortuosity
porosity of solid matrix
liquid phase fraction
coordinates in computational plane
density (kg/m3)
time step (s)
diusion coecient for any variable /
dynamic viscosity (kg/(m s))

Subscripts
E, W, N, S neighboring points to point P
f
PCM phase

O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

fe
s
se

i
o

849

PCM eective
solid matrix phase
solid eective
ber
inner
outer

Superscripts
old
beginning of time step
k
iteration number

1. Introduction
Phase change materials (PCMs) are used nowadays in many applications such as heat protection systems in aerospace applications, active and passive cooling of electronic devices and energy
storage devices. Although PCMs like paran waxes exhibit desirable properties as PCMs, they
present a low thermal conductivity. This property reduces the rate of heat storage and extraction
during melting and solidication cycles and, therefore, the overall power of the phase change
regenerator. Dierent techniques to oset this low thermal conductivity have been studied, mainly
experimentally. These techniques include adding matrix structure [1], adding carbon bers or carbon ber brushes [2,3] and by dispersing carbon nano-tubes in the PCM [4]. It was found that
using these techniques has a great eect on enhancing the PCM thermal conductivity.
For melting and solidication of multi-components materials, a mushy region is generated,
which consists of a ne meshwork of dendrites growing into the melt region. So, in this case, there
will be the solid phase of the porous matrix and the PCM, which may be in solid, liquid or mushy
state. Because of this complicated structure, most of the works, which have been done in this eld
are based on volume averaging of the microscopic conservation equations to account for the complex interfacial structures of each constituent. This model oers the advantage that the entire domain can be treated as a single region governed by one set of conservation equations. In other
words, the same equations can be used for the melt as for the fully solidied regions. Freezing
and melting of water in saturated porous media contained in various enclosures had been studied
experimentally and numerically by Weaver and Viskanta [5]. Their freezing experiments in a rectangular cavity clearly showed the inuence of natural convection on the solid/liquid interface
shape and motion. Beckermann and Viskanta [6] combined numerical and experimental studies
for solid/liquid phase change in porous media with natural convection in the molten region. Their
model was based on volume averaged transport equations, while the phase change was assumed to
occur over a small temperature range. Experiments were performed in a vertical, square enclosure
using gallium and glass beads as the PCM and the porous matrix, respectively. They showed that
natural convection, as well as conduction in the solid, has a considerable inuence on the interface
shape during both the melting and solidication processes. All these works considered local thermal equilibrium between the solid matrix and the PCM, and this was acceptable because in most
of the cases, they are dealing with low thermal conductivity porous media. Harris et al. [7]

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

introduced a linearized enthalpy model that maintains a temperature dierence between the PCM
and the walls of the pore while it accepts a standard analytical solution technique.
One of the earliest studies for convection heat transfer in packed beds considering local thermal
non-equilibrium had been performed by Va et al. [8,9]. They presented an analysis for the forced
convective ow of a gas or liquid through a packed bed of spherical solid particles. Erguns correlation was used for the momentum equation to account for the inertia eect as well as viscous effects. Recently, Calmidi and Mahajan [10] and Phanikumar and Mahajan [11] studied natural and
forced convection inside high porosity metal foam using a two energy equation model. It was
shown that the deviation from local thermal equilibrium became signicant for high values of
the Darcy and Rayleigh numbers. For conduction heat transfer in porous media, Whitaker [12]
performed an extensive analysis to determine the conditions for local thermal equilibrium. He concluded that the deviation from local thermal equilibrium would be signicant if there is a large difference between the physical properties of the uid and solid phases. By applying local thermal
non-equilibrium, some parameters are needed to close the model. These parameters are the eective
thermal conductivity for the two phases, the interfacial heat transfer coecient and the interfacial
surface area. Kaviany [13] provided an extensive review of the correlations used to dene the eective thermal conductivity and permeability of porous media. Some recent experimental and analytical works have been performed to dene the eective thermal conductivities and the permeability
of high porosity metal and carbon foams [1419]. Through solving the microscopic ow at pore
scale for a two dimensional porous structure, Nakayama and Kuwahara [20] dened the interfacial
heat transfer coecient, eective thermal conductivity and uid dispersion for convection heat
transfer in porous media. The ow was assumed to pass through a collection of square rods placed
regularly in an innite space. In conduction heat transfer in porous media, dening the interfacial
heat transfer coecient is a rigorous task. Quintard and Whitaker [21] developed closure problems
to model the conduction heat transfer in porous media. These closure problems were solved numerically for certain geometries, such as stratied systems and uniform arrays of cylinders to get the
transport coecients. Hsu [22] derived a simple correlation to dene the Nusselt number considering that the porous media consists of dispersed spheres immersed in a stagnant uid.
For solving problems with phase change and irregular geometry, the choice of solution method
becomes very important. In the past, nite dierence methods have been frequently used for solutions of problems of ow and heat transfer. Many dierent forms of nite dierencing have
evolved over time [23,24], and they have been successfully applied to numerical problems in regular geometries. To solve the same problem in irregular congurations, the use of conventional
nite dierences requires an enormous amount of programming eort, along with approximations. The most common technique to modify the nite dierence method for domains with irregular shapes is by blocking o certain regions of the regular domain. Recently, Ye et al. [25]
developed a method for solving the ow and heat transfer around immersed bodies using an
orthogonal grid, but still, it needs a lot of programming eort. Hence, for all practical purposes,
nite dierencing ceases to be a viable solution technique for uid ow and heat transfer problems
in domains with irregular shapes. The nite volume method is a very powerful tool to solve heat
transfer and uid ow equations. For curvilinear systems, the nite volume technique has been
found to be very ecient in conjunction with numerical grid generation. Staggered or nonstaggered grids may be used for curvilinear systems. The staggered grid arrangement eliminates
the oscillations that appear in the solution due to the second order dierence approximation of

O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

851

the pressure gradient at the grid node for a non-staggered grid. A staggered grid was successfully
used by Pope [26] to remove the pressure oscillations. However, this technique cannot be applied
directly for a curvilinear, body tted grid because the velocity components are not related to the
grid line orientations. As an alternative approach, Rhie and Chow [27] introduced another approach to deal with this problem by implementing a suitable interpolation method for the contravariant velocities at the cell faces of the control volumes. Their interpolation approach, joined
with the SIMPLE algorithm (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations), was applied
successfully to solve steady incompressible ow over an aerofoil. The same technique is extended
to solve unsteady incompressible ow by Zang et al. [28]. Numerical grid generation has become
an integral part of the curvilinear control volume technique. The literature on grid generation
techniques is vast and growing very rapidly. Extensive surveys have been presented by Warsi
et al. [29] and Eisenman [30]. Grid generation techniques can be classied into three categories:
(1) Algebraic methods, (2) Elliptic methods and (3) adaptive grid generation techniques.
The methods for handling moving boundary problems during phase change can be classied
into so-called Eulerian, Lagrangian and EulerianLagrangian methods. The Lagrangian method
makes use of a moving grid in which a particular grid line is made to coincide with the interface.
The required jump conditions are easily applied across the interface. Thus, the interface is strictly
treated as a discontinuity without any numerical diusion. The Eulerian approach uses a xed
computational grid, and additional eld variables are introduced to model the presence of the
moving discontinuity on the gird. The interface is not explicitly tracked but has to be constructed
from the distribution of the eld variables. The enthalpy porosity method developed by Voller
and Prakash [31] is an example of this technique. In the EulerianLagrangian method, a xed grid
is used, and the interface is explicitly tracked by means of marker particles [32,33]. The surface
forces arising from the elasticity of the interface or the surface tension can be incorporated easily
in this technique. There are advantages and disadvantages of the Lagrangian, or the moving
boundary tted grid, approach in comparison with the xed grid methods. This approach makes
the application of the required interfacial conditions straightforward because the phase boundary
coincides with a grid line. The main drawback of this approach is the diculty of handling complex geometry and topological changes, such as merger and breakup of the interface, and also, it
cannot model a mushy region.
The aim of this work is to present a numerical solution of melting and buoyancy induced liquid
phase ow in a high porosity high thermal conductivity solid matrix fully saturated with PCM in
an irregular geometry. Energy transport in this system is studied using a two equation model to be
able to consider local thermal non-equilibrium conditions. The nite volume technique is used
with a non-staggered curvilinear, body tted grid. The practical aim is to dene how much this
porous matrix will improve the response time of the PCM storage. To the best of our knowledge,
no numerical work has been reported for melting of PCM storage supported by high thermal conductivity matrix in an irregular shape.

2. Physical domain and governing equations

As shown in Fig. 1, the physical domain is selected to be two concentric cylinders in which the
volume located between them is lled with a high porosity high thermal conductivity matrix. This

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

g (Gravity direction)

y
adiabatic

Th

Porous matrix
saturated with
PCM

Fig. 1. Physical domain.

matrix is totally saturated with low thermal conductivity phase change material. The inner cylinder
surface is assumed to be at constant temperature Th higher than the melting point, while the outer
cylinder surface is kept adiabatic. Because of the symmetry, only half of this domain will be considered. The governing partial dierential equations describing the melting of the phase change
material inside the porous matrix are obtained from volume averaging of the main conservation
equations of mass, momentum and energy. The resulting equations are a set of partial dierential equations that are similar to the original ones with some added source terms to the momentum
equation to account for the Darcy and Forchiemer eects. Because of the large dierences in thermal properties between the phase change material and the solid matrix in most of the cases, a two
energy equations model is adopted to solve the energy conservation equations. This model can handle local thermal non-equilibrium condition between the PCM and the solid matrix. In formulating
the problem, the PCM and the porous matrix are assumed to have constant properties, and the volume change due to the melting process is neglected. The nite volume technique in conjunction with
numerical grid generation based on a body tted coordinate transformation has been adopted.
The physical domain (x, y) is transformed into a computational domain (n, g). The mathematical formulation of the governing equations in a non-orthogonal curvilinear system can be written
as follows:
Continuity
o
o
o
qJ qU qV 0
1
ot
on
og
u-momentum



J oqu 1 oqUu 1 oqVu
op
op o l
ou
ou
2
2

y g y n
a11
a12
e ot
e on
e og
on
og on J e
on
og



o l
ou
ou
2

a12 a22
S u n; gJ

og J e
on
og
v-momentum



J oqv 1 oqUv 1 oqVv
op
op o l
ov
ov
2
2

xn xg
a11
a12
e ot
e on
e og
og
on on J e
on
og



o l
ov
ov
3

a12 a22
S v n; gJ

og J e
on
og

O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

853

PCM phase energy equation




oqcpf T f oqcpf UT f oqcpf VT f
o k fe
oT f
oT f
Jd

a11

a12
on J
ot
on
og
on
og



o k fe
oT f
oT f

a12
a22
S T f n; gJ

og J
on
og

Solid matrix energy equation







oqcps T s
o k se
oT s
oT s
o k se
oT s
oT s

a11

a12

a12
a22
J 1
d

on J
og J
ot
on
og
on
og
S T s n; gJ

where d is the solid matrix porosity, and e is the liquid phase fraction.
e Liquid fraction of PCM  d
The geometrical diusion coecients a11, a12, a21, a22 and Jacobian J are given by

2
2





ox
oy
ox
ox
oy
oy
a11

; a12

;
og
og
on og
on og





ox oy
ox oy
J


on og
og on

2
2
ox
oy

a22
on
on

The contravariant velocities U and V are dened as

U u

oy
ox

v
og
og

and V v

ox
oy

u
on
on

The source terms that appear in the equations can be expressed as in Table 1. The rst term
appearing in the momentum source terms in the u and v directions is the Darcy eect where K is
the permeability of the porous matrix. The second term represents the Forchiemer eect and C is
an empirical constant. bf is the uid thermal expansion coecient and g is the acceleration of
gravity. The rst term appearing in the energy source terms STf and STs represents the heat
exchange between the solid matrix and the PCM phase. The second term in STf represents
the melting source terms where fl and L are the liquid fraction and latent heat of fusion,
respectively.
Table 1
Source terms denitions
Sv

Su

Kl

u

qCj~
uju
p
K

Kl

STf
v

qCj~
ujv
p
K

qgbf T f
T ref

hsf asf T s
T f

STs
l
dqL df
dt

hsfasf(Tf
Ts)

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

3. Grid generation
Grid generation is accomplished by solving the dierential equations that describe the coordinate transformation between the (x, y) and (n, g) coordinates.
a11 xnn
2a12 xng a22 xgg J 2 Pxn Qxg 0
a11 y nn
2a12 y ng a22 y gg J 2 Py n Qy g 0
where P and Q are controlling functions that can be used to concentrate the grid near the walls
where large gradients can be anticipated. These parameters are specied as mentioned by Warsi
et al. [29].

4. Numerical solution
The governing equations have been discretized using a nite volume approach. A non-staggered
grid is used where all the variables (velocities and all the other scalar variables) are stored at the
control volume center. A typical control volume in the computational domain is shown in Fig. 2.
Upon integrating the governing equation of any variable /(u, v, Tf, Ts), the following discretized
equation is obtained.
AP /P AE /E AW /E AN /N AS /S S

By calculating the uxes at the interfaces using a hybrid dierence scheme, the expressions for
the coecients can be written as
AW maxF w ; Dw F w =2; 0

AE max
F e ; De
F e =2; 0

AS maxF s ; Ds F s =2; 0

AN max
F n ; Dn
F n =2; 0

AoP

qJ
Dt

AP AW AE AS AN

AoP

DF

where Fe = qU and Fn = qV are the convection uxes through the east and north surfaces, De
(a11C//J)e is the diusion ux across the east surface and DF = Fe
Fw + Fn
Fs.

NW

SW

SE

Fig. 2. Typical control volume in computational domain.

O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

855

The non-orthogonal components are treated explicitly and added with any other source term to
the term S in Eq. (6);












a12 C/ o/
a12 C/ o/
a12 C/ o/
a12 C/ o/
o old

8
S AP / S / J

J og e
J og w
J oe n
J oe s
Second order nite dierence approximations are used to approximate the above derivatives.


o/
/
/SE /N
/S
NE
4
og e
Considering isothermal melting, the liquid fraction is updated iteratively at each control volume
P using this formula;
(
1 if flk1 > 1
A
T


T

P
P
m
9
flk1 flk
; with the restriction flk1
o
LAP
0 if flk1 < 0
where AP and AoP are the coecients that appear in the discretized energy equation, and Tm is the
melting temperature.
The standard SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations) algorithm has
been used to solve the coupled continuity and momentum equations. The Rhie and Chow interpolation technique [27] is used to dene the convection ux at the control volume surfaces to eliminate the pressure oscillations. A fully implicit formulation has been used for the time dependent
terms, and the combined convection diusion coecients are evaluated using a hybrid dierence
scheme. A line by line solver based on TDMA is used iteratively to solve the algebraic discretized
equations iteratively. The convergence is assumed to be achieved when the dependent variables
residuals and the mass imbalance, which appears in the pressure correction equation, agreed to
four signicant digits at each nodal point.
5. Estimation of interfacial heat transfer coecient, permeability and eective thermal conductivity
The estimation procedures followed to dene the interfacial heat transfer coecient hfs between
the PCM and the solid matrix is based on quasi-steady heat conduction between the porous matrix and the PCM while neglecting the liquid phase motion. The quasi-steady assumption is suitable for dealing with heat conduction on the pore size because the time scale of the heat transfer
process between the matrix bers and the adjacent PCM can be assumed to be very small with
respect to that of the total system. The porous matrix geometry is assumed to be an intersected
mesh of bers with circular cross section area and with diameter d as shown in Fig. 3a.
The heat exchange between the matrix bers and the PCM can be simplied by heat conduction
in two cylindrical layers as shown in Fig. 3b. By assuming that the temperature at r = ri equals Ts
(solid matrix temperature) and at r = ro equals Tf (PCM temperature), the temperature
distribution can be obtained by solving the heat diusion equation in cylindrical coordinates as
follows:




q
r
q
r
ln
ln
; in PCM phase T T f

10
In solid phase; T T s

2plk s
ri
2plk f
ro

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

d fi

ri

dp
(a)

rfi

ro

(b)

Fig. 3. (a) Porous matrix structure, (b) thermal conduction layers in ber and PCM.

where l is the length of the ber. By equating the temperatures at the ber surface from the solid
and PCM sides, we can dene the heat ux q
q

2plT s
T f k s k f
hsf 2prfi lT s
T f
k f ln1
B k s ln1 A

11

where A = (ro
r)/r and B = (r
ri)/r are the non-dimensional thicknesses of the conduction
layer.
The Nusselt number can be dened from Eq. (11) as
Nu

hsf d fi
2k s =k f

ln1
B k s =k f ln1 A
kf

12

The values of A and B can be related to each other by applying the energy balance between the
two conduction layers, which can be written as
as
13
B2
2B
2 ln1
B A2 2A
2 ln1 A
af
where as and af are the thermal diusivities of the solid and PCM phases, respectively.
For small values of A and B in the case of low thermal diusivity for both the solid and PCM
phase, the right hand side can be approximated to 2B2 because the value of (
2B
2 ln(1
B))
will have
the same order of magnitude as B2. In this case, Eq. (13) can be approximated to
p
A B as =af . Because of the fact that the thermal diusivity of the solid matrix is much greater
than that of the PCM, the value of B is assumed in our calculations to be very close to unity, and
the value of A is calculated based on that from Eq. (13) by knowing the thermal diusivity ratio.
The interfacial surface area and permeability of the porous matrix are assumed as proposed by
Fourie and Du Plessis [19]
3
asf 3
vv
1
d

d2 d 2
and K
36v
1v

14

where d is the characteristic length for the cell, given as a function of the pore size dp and the tortuosity v.


dp 3
v
4p 1

1
and v 2 2 cos
cos 2d
1

v
3 3
d

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857

The solid matrix and the PCM eective thermal conductivities can be dened by putting kf and
ks to zero, respectively, in the analytical expression derived in Appendix A for the total eective
thermal conductivity
q

h
i

1
d
1
d
k


kf p


k

k f 1
d
k s
k f
s
f
3p
3p
3
q
h q
i
ke
1
d
k f 43 1
d
1


d

p


1


d
k s
k f
3p
3p
q

1
d
1
d
1
d
p


ks
3p
3p
3
q
i
For k f 0; it will give k se h q
4
1
d
1
d
1


d

p


1


d
3
3p
3p

15

h
q
 i

1
d
1
d


kf
p
kf
k f k f
1
d
3p
3p
3
q
For k s 0; it will give k fe
h q
i
1
d
1


d

p


1


d
kf
k f
43 1
d
3p
3p

16

6. Results and discussion

Because of the lack of experimental results for melting in irregular geometry, the numerical
code is validated by applying it to the Khillarkar et al. [34] case. They studied free convection
dominated melting of a pure phase change material contained in concentric horizontal annuli.
The conguration of their geometry was a square external tube with a circular tube inside it.
The inner cylindrical wall was subjected to uniform temperature higher than the melting temperature of the PCM, and the outer wall was adiabatic. The nite element technique was used in this
study. The comparison has been made for the same conditions that are summarized in Table 2.
The solidliquid interface at Fo equal to 0.1296 for our code and for the Khillarkar work is shown
in Fig. 4. As shown in the gure, the two results are in a good agreement.
Our simulation is performed for a PCM energy storage located between two concentric cylinders. The inner cylinder surface is kept at constant temperature higher than the melting temperature of the PCM, and the outer cylinder surface is kept adiabatic. The results will be shown for a
value of Stefan number equal to 0.5 and Rayleigh number equal to 107. The denitions of the Stefan and Rayleigh numbers are shown in the nomenclature. At the beginning, the results will be
shown for melting of pure PCM in this type of energy storage, then the eect of inserting a ber
matrix with dierent thermal conductivities and dierent porosities will be investigated. The grid

Table 2
Run input data for code validation case
Ra
St
Pr
Melting temp.

2.844 106
0.138
46.1
300.4

PCM solidliquid thermal conductivity ratio

PCM solidliquid specic heat ratio
Initial temperature
Hot wall temp.

2.419
0.964
300.0
316.0

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

Fig. 4. Comparison of solidliquid interface at Fourier number equal 0.1296.

sensitivity is studied at the beginning by increasing the grid size and by concentrating the grid beside the walls until we get negligible change in temperature gradient beside the inner cylinder surface. It is found that the grid size of 100 50 and with the rst grid distance 0.009 (R2
R1),
where R1 and R2 are the radii of the inner and outer cylinders, respectively, are sucient to capture the temperature and velocity gradients accurately at this value of Rayleigh number. The grid
is shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 6 shows the predicted contours of temperature (left) and streamlines (right) at dierent
Fourier numbers for pure PCM melting. At the beginning of the melting process, the heat transfer
mainly occurs by conduction from the hot surface to the PCM. After formation of a liquid layer
around the inner cylinder, the liquid phase starts to move upward due to the buoyancy force. Because of the higher viscous eect at the beginning, the ow separates from the wall and forms
three vortices at the Fourier number 0.01667. The temperature increases at the separation points
due to the intersection of the hot liquid streams in contact with the hot surface coming from the
upper and lower directions. At higher Fourier numbers, when the melt region widens, these vortices combine together to form a single vortex motion as depicted in the gure.
Fig. 7 displays the dimensionless temperature gradient corresponding to dierent Fourier numbers and a zoom for the temperature contours and streamlines at the Fourier number 0.01667.
The temperature gradient decreases smoothly from the bottom to the top of the inner cylinder
surface due to the motion of the hot liquid to the top as a result of the buoyancy force. A sharp
decrease and increase in the temperature gradient can be seen at the lower Fourier number. This
happens due to separation of the liquid from the cylinder surface. The temperature gradient drops
sharply at the separation point and also increases sharply at the middle of the vortex due to the
cold liquid coming into contact with the hot surface from the melting zone.

O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

Fig. 5. Grid for the current study.

Fig. 6. Temperature contours (left) and streamlines (right) for pure PCM at dierent Fourier numbers.

859

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

Fig. 7. (a) Heat ux at the inner cylinder surface at dierent Fourier numbers; (b) zoom for temperature contours and
streamlines at Fo = 0.01667.

As mentioned before, the reason for using the high thermal conductivity ber matrix is to enhance the eective thermal conductivity of the PCM energy storage and, hence, increase the energy absorption rate. So, a parametric study has been performed to investigate the eect of
inserting a matrix with dierent porosities and dierent thermal conductivities on the temperature
eld and on the storage heat absorption. The eects of insertion of a ber matrix with dierent
porosities on the temperature and velocity elds are shown in Fig. 8. The gure shows the temperature contours and streamlines at an early stage of the melting process with Fourier number
equal 0.01667 and thermal conductivity ratio (ks/kf) equal to 200. By comparing the case of pure
PCM, Fig. 8a, and the case of using a matrix with porosity 0.95, we can see the increase of the
melting rate in Fig. 8b. As the porosity decreases, the melting rate increases, and also, the convection motion of the liquid phase damps due to the decrease in the matrix permeability. The heat
transfer regime tends to look like a pure conduction case as the porosity of the matrix goes down.
The temperature gradient and its uctuations due to separation near the inner cylinder surface
decrease with decreasing porosity as shown in Fig. 9 due to the increase in eective thermal conductivity and the decrease in the permeability of the porous matrix.
We have to mention here that decreasing porosity can play a good and bad role on enhancing
the melting process. The good one is that with lower porosity of the high thermal conductivity
matrix, we can attain higher eective thermal conductivity, but at the same time, this will damp
the liquid phase motion that naturally enhances the melting process.
To investigate the eect of changing the porous matrix thermal conductivity, the thermal conductivity ratio between the PCM and the porous matrix has been changed from 50 to 200 while
keeping the porosity constant at 0.9. Fig. 10 shows the temperature eld and streamlines at Fourier number equal to 0.06667. Increasing the porous matrix thermal conductivity increases the
melting rate, especially at the lower region of the PCM storage. For the pure PCM case, Fig.
10a, no separation has been noticed, and the liquid convection motion consists of just one cell
at the upper part of the storage due to the lower melting rate at the lower part. The presence
of the porous matrix with thermal conductivity ratio equal to 50 increases the melting rate at
the bottom region, and this, in turn, generates two vortex cells in the liquid phase. As the thermal

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861

Fig. 8. Temperature contours (left) and streamlines (right). (a) Pure PCM, (b) porosity 0.95, (c) porosity 0.90,
(d) porosity 0.85.

Fig. 9. Non-dimensional PCM phase temperature gradient at Fo = 0.01667 and ks/kf = 200.

conductivity increases, the melting rate at the lower part increases, and the separation point moves
to the left as shown in Fig. 10b and c. For a thermal conductivity ratio equal to 200, these two

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

Fig. 10. Temperature contours (left) and streamlines (right). (a) Pure PCM, (b) ks/kf = 50, (c) ks/kf = 100,
(d) ks/kf = 200.

vortex cells merge together to form one cell as shown in Fig. 10d. The temperature gradient beside
the inner cylinder wall is shown in Fig. 11. The jumps in temperature gradient at the upper region
move with the motion of the separation point for the thermal conductivity ratios 50 and 100. Also,
as the thermal conductivity of the solid matrix increases, the temperature gradient decreases due
to the increase in the eective thermal conductivity of the total system.
The eectiveness of adding this porous matrix to the PCM storage is quantied by displaying
the heat absorption normalized by the storage latent heat with time. Fig. 12 shows the heat
absorption time history for constant thermal conductivity ratio at dierent matrix porosities.
As shown in the gure, the response time or the heat absorption time is decreased signicantly
by the presence of the solid matrix. The time required to absorb energy equal to the storage latent
heat decreases nearly to half by inserting a matrix with porosity 0.95 and thermal conductivity
ratio equal to 200. This improvement in storage response decreases with decreasing matrix porosity because of the increase in the liquid motion resistance, which, in turn, damps the melting rate.
Fig. 13 shows the time history of heat absorption for dierent thermal conductivity ratios while
keeping the porosity constant at 0.90. The response time, as shown in the gure, improves gradually with increasing matrix thermal conductivity. This improvement increases as the matrix thermal conductivity increases.
To conclude, it is seen from this numerical investigation that the improvement in the PCM storage performance depends on the porosity and the thermal conductivity of the matrix. Decreasing

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863

Fig. 11. Non-dimensional PCM phase temperature gradient at Fo = 0.0667 and Porosity = 0.90.

Fig. 12. Heat absorbed normalized by the latent heat of the storage for dierent matrix porosities.

Fig. 13. Heat absorbed normalized by the latent heat of the storage for dierent matrix thermal conductivities.

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O. Mesalhy et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 46 (2005) 847867

the porosity makes some improvement, but this will reduce the uid motion and also will be at the
expense of the quantity of PCM and, consequently, the storage capacity of the PCM storage. The
other way of using a porous matrix with higher thermal conductivity and higher porosity, which
has the same characteristics as high porosity metal foam or graphite foam seems to be the more
eective way.

7. Conclusions
A numerical model based on solving the volume averaged conservation equations for mass,
momentum and energy with phase change (melting) has been developed to study the eect of adding a high thermal conductivity matrix on the performance of PCM energy storage. The numerical
results showed good agreement with other published results for melting of pure PCM. The convection motion of the liquid phase inside the porous matrix is solved considering the Darcy,
Brinkman and Forchiemer eects. The local thermal non-equilibrium assumption is considered
due to the large dierences in thermal properties between the solid matrix and PCM by applying
a two energy equation model. The interfacial heat transfer coecient is estimated by applying
quasi-steady heat conduction between the porous matrix and the PCM while neglecting the liquid
phase motion. Analytical expressions are derived for the solid matrix and PCM eective thermal
conductivities. A parametric study has been performed to study the eects of using a solid matrix
with dierent porosity and thermal conductivity. By comparing the thermal performance of the
storage with and without the porous matrix, it was found that the presence of the matrix has a
great eect on the heat transfer and melting rate of the PCM. Decreasing the porosity of the matrix increases the melting rate, but it also damps the convection motion. It was also found that the
best way to enhance the response of the PCM storage is to use a solid matrix with high porosity
and high thermal conductivity.

Appendix A. Calculation of eective thermal conductivity

By assuming that the porous matrix is made of intersected bers with circular cross sections
placed at equal distances in all directions, the eective thermal conductivity can be calculated analytically by assuming one dimensional heat conduction. A unit cell consisting of a quarter of the
cylindrical ber in all three directions, as shown in Fig. 14, can be taken as a representative unit
cell. The thermal conductivity in all directions should be the same due to the symmetry of the
geometry in all three directions. To derive the analytical expression for the eective thermal conductivity, the unit cell is divided into two layers; Layer I and Layer II. The solid and the PCM are
placed in parallel in each layer.
The thermal conductivity of each layer can be dened as

2 !
V sI
V fI
p
d fi
df
2

k s
k f k f
ks
kf
kI
4
VT
VT
dp
dp

A:1

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865

II

dfi /2
dp /2

Fig. 14. Representative unit cell for the porous matrix.

2
V sII
V fII
p d fi
k II
ks
kf
k s
k f k f
4 dp
VT
VT

A:2

Based on the assumed geometry, the ratio between the ber and pore diameters can be expressed as a function of matrix porosity as
r
d fi
1
d
A:3
2
3p
dp
!
r
p
1
d
1
d
1
d
So; k I

4
k s
k f k f and k II
A:4
4
k s
k f k f
4
3p
3p
3
By combining the two layers, which are in series, the eective thermal conductivity can be
dened as
LI LII LI LII

ke
k I k II
The nal expression for the eective thermal conductivity, after some arrangements, can be
written as
h
i
q


1
d
1
d


kf p


k

k f 1
d
k s
k f
k
s
f
3p
3p
3
q
h q
i
A:5
ke
1
d
1


d

p


1


d
k
k f 43 1
d


k

s
f
3p
3p

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