This paper introduces a novel strategy on enhancing melting heat transfer for a shell-and-tube unit by partially filling porous foam. A series of filling ratios for metal foam are studied regarding thermal energy charging performance. A two-dimensional axial-symmetric model is established and verified by comparing of temperature with experimental data, obtaining satisfactory agreement between the two methods. The characteristics of the melting process such as melting fraction, temperature response and uniformity, heat storage and velocity field are analyzed in detail. The results show that the appropriate reduction of the metal foam filling ratio in the upper part can significantly promote the heat storage process due to mainly the enhanced natural convection effect. By comparing 17 cases with different filling ratios, an optimal filling ratio of 0.89 is recommended to achieve a 10.5% higher heat storage efficiency than the one with fully filled condition. The temperature uniformity first increases and then decreases with metal foam filling ratios. The best temperature uniformity is achieved for the filling ratio of 0.95. The case with a filling ratio of 0.89 possesses the shortest energy charging time at the expense of reducing the temperature uniformity. Compared with the fully filled metal foam, a better energy storage process was achieved with less metal foam material.

中文翻译：

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部分填充金属泡沫的热能储存单元的熔化评估*

本文介绍了一种通过部分填充多孔泡沫来增强管壳式装置熔化传热的新策略。研究了一系列泡沫金属填充率关于热能充电性能。建立了二维轴对称模型，并通过温度与实验数据的比较进行验证，两种方法得到了满意的一致性。详细分析了熔化过程的熔化率、温度响应和均匀性、蓄热和速度场等特性。结果表明，适当降低上部泡沫金属填充率可以显着促进蓄热过程，主要是由于增强了自然对流效应。通过比较17个不同填充率的案例，推荐的最佳填充率为 0.89，以实现比完全填充条件高 10.5% 的蓄热效率。温度均匀性随着泡沫金属填充率的增加先增加后减小。填充比为 0.95 时可实现最佳温度均匀性。填充比为0.89的情况以降低温度均匀性为代价拥有最短的能量充电时间。与完全填充的泡沫金属相比，用更少的泡沫金属材料实现了更好的储能过程。填充比为0.89的情况以降低温度均匀性为代价拥有最短的能量充电时间。与完全填充的泡沫金属相比，用更少的泡沫金属材料实现了更好的储能过程。填充比为0.89的情况以降低温度均匀性为代价拥有最短的能量充电时间。与完全填充的泡沫金属相比，用更少的泡沫金属材料实现了更好的储能过程。