Abstract In this paper, melting of a phase change material (PCM) inside a rectangular enclosure, possibly finned and inclined, is studied numerically. The application of this work is related to the temperature control of a finned PV panel filled with PCM and installed at different tilt angles. The studied system is modeled as a 2D rectangular enclosure filled with PCM (RT25) and packed between two aluminum plates, where the front side is exposed to a constant heat flux of 1000 W/m2 for 2 h. Four geometries were considered including a non-finned PCM enclosure, a PCM enclosure with one centered full-width fin, one half-width fin attached to the front plate, and one half-width fin attached to the back plate. Results have shown that the most efficient thermal management of the PV-PCM panel is obtained when the PCM enclosure is equipped with a full-width fin simultaneously attached to the front and back plates. With such a PV panel design, the PCM melting is dominated by natural convection heat transfer from both sides of the PCM enclosure at an early stage, with added heat losses from the back plate to the external environment. Accordingly, low values of the front and back plates temperatures can be maintained during a stabilization time of 80 min as long as the tilt angle is varied from 0° to 75° from the vertical. The efficient temperature control resulting from the full-width fin geometry is mainly related to the high overall heat transfer coefficient obtained during the whole melting process.

中文翻译：

---

作为倾斜度和翅片位置的函数的矩形外壳中的相变热传递

摘要 在本文中，数值研究了相变材料 (PCM) 在矩形外壳内的熔化，可能有翅片和倾斜。这项工作的应用涉及填充有 PCM 并以不同倾斜角度安装的翅片光伏电池板的温度控制。所研究的系统被建模为填充有 PCM (RT25) 并装在两块铝板之间的二维矩形外壳，其中正面暴露于 1000 W/m2 的恒定热通量中 2 小时。考虑了四种几何形状，包括无翅片 PCM 外壳、带有一个居中全宽翅片的 PCM 外壳、一个连接到前板的半宽翅片和一个连接到背板的半宽翅片。结果表明，当 PCM 外壳配备同时连接到前板和背板的全宽翅片时，PV-PCM 面板的热管理最有效。采用这样的光伏面板设计，PCM 熔化在早期主要由来自 PCM 外壳两侧的自然对流热传递主导，并增加了从背板到外部环境的热量损失。因此，只要倾斜角从垂直方向从 0° 变化到 75°，就可以在 80 分钟的稳定时间内保持前板和后板温度的低值。全宽翅片几何形状带来的高效温度控制主要与在整个熔化过程中获得的高整体传热系数有关。