IRJET- Computational Fluid Dynamic Analysis of Wax Melting

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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)

e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 | Mar 2019

p-ISSN: 2395-0072

www.irjet.net

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF WAX MELTING S.Rajkumar1, P.Venugopal2, P.Vinoth kumar3 , M.Tamilvanan4,R.Vishnukumar5. 1Assistant

2UG

Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, KSR Institute for Engineering and Technology, Tiruchengode.

Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, KSR Institute for Engineering and Technology, Tiruchengode.

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Abstract - In the present numerical study and analysis a

three dimensional sphere with hallow section is considered as test section. The grid independent test and time independent test are performed and chosen the appropriate grid size for numerical study. The diameter of hallow section of sphere is 84 mm. The aluminium wall thickness is 1 mm. The isothermal boundary condition is taken for numerical simulation. The three different PCMs (Paraffin wax, Sodium acetate trihydrate and Lauric acid) are tested for energy storage and for performance analysis. The energy stored by PCMs is compared. The melt fraction contour and temperature contour are also analysed at different time of simulation. Key Words: (Evacuate tube; Phase Change Material; Paraffin Wax; Melting Process.)

1.INTRODUCTION In the modern world with improved lifestyle the energy demands of human beings have increased. We all know that our conventional energy resources (fossil fuels) are limited in quantity and are being used up at higher rate. The use of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum poses a large number of problems due to their high cost, emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and oil security. So it becomes important to conserve these fossil fuels and to protect our environment from the harmful effects of environmental pollution. We all know that most of our fossil fuels are used in power plant and transportation sector, which are not much efficient in terms of energy use. There are huge amount of energy losses in these systems. Most of these energy losses are in the form of heat loss. If we take the example of an automobile about 30-40% of the energy produced by burning fuel is lost as waste heat, which reduces the range of automobile. Also we have HVAC systems in our automobile. A heating system of about 5kW is used in i-MiEV of MITSUBISHI Motors. This excess need of energy reduces the driving range of such vehicles by about 10-65%. So it becomes important to do the proper thermal management of such systems to increase their efficiency which can help us in achieving our goal of conserving fossil fuels and protecting the environment. The use of thermal energy storage (TES) systems is an emerging Š 2019, IRJET

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technology used nowadays for thermal management. These systems are designed to store thermal energy. This can be done with various modes such as by storing it as sensible heat, latent heat and thermochemical process. The latent heat storage (LHS) system makes the use of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) for thermal energy storage.

1.2 Phase change material PCMs are the materials which are used for storing latent heat energy. These are the materials which changes its one state to another when heat energy is supplied or extracted away from them. They can change from solid to liquid state by absorbing latent heat of fusion and vice versa or they can change their state from liquid to gaseous by absorbing latent heat to vaporization and vice versa or they can change their state from solid to gaseous by absorbing latent heat of sublimation and vice versa at constant temperature. The solid to liquid phase change mode is most widely used for LHS. The fig -1 shows the phenomenon of phase change for solid to liquid phase change mode. The shaded region shows the total heat energy stored during phase change of a material from solid to liquid. The total energy stored is the sum of sensible heat in solid state, latent heat during phase change at constant temperature and sensible heat in liquid state.

Fig- 1: Heat storage during phase change of material

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