Abstract
•The radiation impacts on the melting/solidification zone together with the entropy generation within a prismatic enclosure are studied.•The NEPCMs-water mixtures are used as working fluids.•FEM-CBS algorithm is applied to solve the governing system.•An improvement in the heat transfer is obtained using NEPCMs-suspensions.
The heat transfer and fluid flow due to the interaction between the radiation and convective modes is examined. Also, the irreversibility processes within the considered system is calculated based on the second law of the thermodynamic. The Nano–Encapsulated Phase Change Materials (NEPCM) in which their core is nonadecane and their shell is polyurethane are used to formulate the worked suspension. The flow domains are prismatic enclosures and two designs (D1 and D2) based on the aspect ratio of the enclosures walls are carried out. The geometry is filled by glass balls as an isotropic porous medium. The solution methodology is based on the finite element method and a semi implicit technique is applied for the velocities. The main outcomes disclosed that the alteration of the radiation parameter reduces the melting/solidification processes. Also, using NEPCM's gives a clear improvement in the heat transfer.