Abstract Context and Background Enhancing the energy efficiency of air conditioning (AC) systems is a key challenge in reducing overall household and industrial energy consumption. Motivation Increasing the thermal performance of condensers using innovative materials offers a potential path toward achieving this goal. Hypothesis This study hypothesizes that integrating multi‐cylindrical phase change materials (PCMs) with an AC condenser can improve heat transfer and system performance compared to conventional configurations. Methods Numerical simulations were performed using ANSYS Fluent 19.2 with four RANS‐based turbulence models—SST k–ω, standard k–ω, realizable k–ε, and RNG k–ε—under an inlet air temperature of 308.15 K and airflow rate of 33.6 L/s. Significant Results The results show that the RNG k–ε model yields the lowest complete melting time (CMT), being 8.16%, 36.87%, and 51.19% faster than the realizable k–ε, SST k–ω, and standard k–ω models, respectively. Main Findings The findings demonstrate that proper selection of turbulence models is crucial for accurately predicting PCM‐assisted condenser performance, contributing to the design of more energy‐efficient air conditioning systems.
Sao et al. (Fri,) studied this question.