A new research paper titled (Investigating the Impact of Cell Inclination on Phase Change Material Meting in Square Cells: A Numerical Study) was published by the head of the department of petroleum engineering in the University of Kerbala Assistant Professor Dr. Farhan Lafta Rasheed as the first researcher. The research was accomplished in collaboration with other researchers from the University of Kerbala as well as other researchers from the Middle Technical University and the University of Gävle in Sweden. The paper was published in “Materials” journal which is a Q1 Scopus and Clarivate indexed journal published by MDPI. It should be noted that this research is the fourth contribution to be published by the aforementioned researcher during this year.
The research aims to examine the effect of the tilt angle on the melting behavior of phase change materials (PCMs) such as paraffin wax within a square cell. As a result, this would ensure the greatest capacity to release and store energy. In addition, analyzing this effect helps engineers in creating systems that enhance heat transfer from external sources to the PCM and vice versa. In order to determine the extent of the effect of the cell inclination angle on the PCM melting of paraffin wax (RT42) inside a square cell, a numerical analysis was carried out using ANSYS Fluent 16 software.
The results showed that when the cell inclination angle was increased from 0° to 15°, 30° and 45°, the amount of time required to complete the melting process increased by 15%, 42% and 71%, respectively. In addition, after 210 minutes of operation, the maximum temperature of the PCM reached 351.5 K at a tilt angle of 0° (horizontal) versus 332.5 K at a tilt angle of 45°.
