Numerical Study on Phase Change Material with Metal Foam in Shell and Convergent/Divergent Tube Thermal Energy Storage Systems with External Heat Losses

The development of energy storage systems has become crucial to reduce negative environmental impacts and overcome the mismatch between the required and produced energy. Thermal energy storage systems (TESS) have become highly relevant, and one of the most promising TESS systems is the latent heat thermal energy storage system (LHTESS) based on phase change materials (PCMs). However, the low thermal conductivity and poor heat transfer capabilities of PCMs limit their performance. The use of metal foams as porous media in LHTESS can enhance the low thermal conductivity of PCM and exploit its high energy density. The study performs a simulation on a vertical shell and convergent tube geometry composed of metal foam filled with pure paraffin wax as the PCM considering external heat losses and using the Darcy-Forchheimer model and the enthalpy-porosity theory to analyze the thermal behavior of the system. The numerical results show that the combination of metal foam with PCM significantly improves heat transfer, resulting in a much faster phase change process and reduced melting time. The study can also be expanded further to simulate other types of metal foam and PCMs.