Abstract In this study, seven vertical shell-tube latent heat storage (LHS) systems are built to explore the effect of geometry on the melting and solidification behavior of phase change material (PCM). The performances of these systems using pure PCM (paraffin RT82) and composite PCM (paraffin RT82 embedded in copper foam) are investigated. Two-dimensional numerical model based on the enthalpy-porosity method and two-temperature energy equations is developed and verified with the experimental data. The solid-liquid interface, isotherms, time histories of liquid fraction and stored energy are used to evaluate the thermal performance. Results show that the conical shell system enhances natural convection compared with the cylinder system, whereas the frustum tube system enhances both convection and conduction. Geometry modification has little effect on the thermal performance of composite metal foam/PCM. Compared with the cylinder LHS system, the complete melting time with geometry modification is reduced by at least 9.2% for pure PCM, and less than 5.9% for composite metal foam/PCM. Moreover, it is also found that the frustum tube system outperforms the conical shell system in both melting and solidification, regardless of metal foam and HTF material.

中文翻译：

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几何改性对复合泡沫金属/相变材料热能存储热响应的影响

摘要 在这项研究中，建立了七个垂直壳管潜热储存 (LHS) 系统，以探索几何形状对相变材料 (PCM) 熔化和凝固行为的影响。研究了这些使用纯 PCM（石蜡 RT82）和复合 PCM（石蜡 RT82 嵌入泡沫铜）的系统的性能。建立了基于焓-孔隙度法和两温度能量方程的二维数值模型，并用实验数据进行了验证。固-液界面、等温线、液体分数的时间历程和储存的能量用于评估热性能。结果表明，与圆柱系统相比，锥形壳系统增强了自然对流，而截头锥体系统增强了对流和传导。几何形状修改对复合泡沫金属/PCM 的热性能影响不大。与圆柱体 LHS 系统相比，纯 PCM 与几何形状修改的完全熔化时间至少减少了 9.2%，对于复合金属泡沫/PCM 减少了不到 5.9%。此外，还发现无论金属泡沫和 HTF 材料如何，平截头体管系统在熔化和凝固方面都优于锥形壳系统。