Abstract Employing porous fins in a latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) unit is one of the effective strategies to improve heat transfer efficiency. The present study uses a shell-and-tube model embedded with porous fins and nano-enhanced phase change material (NEPCM) to study heat transfer and other performance parameters. Operational time and energy storage density are the main parameters of interest. Results demonstrate that a change in fin design significantly affects the melting time required to complete solid-liquid phase change. A 4.5% increase in tope is observed with a change in upper fin height. Therefore, the response surface method was used to understand the influence of porous fin geometrical features on the performance parameters. With a reduction of the fin angle, the melting time is reduced by 6.09%. ANOVA results revealed that the tope significantly influenced by the different fin parameters. Energy storage density (Es) of the porous fin is more sensitive to the height of main fin (Hm) compared to other fin parameters. It was found that the height ratio of upper and bottom fins (HuHb) factor is crucial in improving melting dynamics. The trade-off solutions obtained with MDIP and TOPSIS techniques show an error percentage of 3.04%, 0.113% concerning the tope. For Es, an error percentage of 0.63%, 1.34% for the MDIP and TOPSIS, respectively. The present work provides new strategies and insights for designing annular Y-shaped porous fins to optimize LHTES performance.
Reddy et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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