The heat transfer rate of thermal energy storage (TES) applying phase change material (PCM) will be reduced in the last stage since the heat is transferred to the top of the enclosure by natural convection. One of the effective method to enhance the heat transfer is to heat the PCM at the bottom directly. Consequently, the optimal arrangement of the TES with eight heat transfer channels in melting and solidification processes is investigated in this paper. Ten kinds of arrangements are considered and five ones are set randomly. The effects of Rayleigh number are studied. The results show that the heat transfer rate increases firstly and then decreases with the rise of distance between centers of enclosure and heat sources. The heat source at the bottom will heat the bottom PCM directly and the total melting time can be reduced by 50% when the Rayleigh number is 10. In the solidification process, the heat transfer can be enhanced by increasing the distance between heat sources. Besides, the heat source absorbs heat from latent heat and the faster rate of solidification gets the temperature more uniform.

中文翻译：

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通过优化布置相变材料强化热能储存传热


采用相变材料（PCM）的热能储存（TES）的传热率将在最后阶段降低，因为热量通过自然对流传递到外壳的顶部。增强传热的有效方法之一是直接加热底部的PCM。因此，本文研究了具有八个传热通道的 TES 在熔化和凝固过程中的优化布置。考虑了十种排列方式，并随机设置五种排列方式。研究了瑞利数的影响。结果表明，随着外壳中心与热源距离的增大，传热速率先增大后减小。底部热源直接加热底部PCM，当瑞利数为10时，总熔化时间可减少50%。在凝固过程中，可通过增加热源之间的距离来增强传热。此外，热源从潜热中吸收热量，凝固速度更快，温度更均匀。