Abstract
•Storage tank for charging of paraffin has been considered.•Spiral pipe with hybrid nanomaterial was selected.•Growth of time from 5 to 20 min leads to 87.3% augmentation in Xd.•Augment of time makes the Tmin of hybrid nanomaterial augments about 1.145%.
Storage tank for charging of paraffin has been considered in current article. For better transferring the heat to PCM (Phase change material), spiral pipe with hybrid nanomaterial was selected and copper nano sized material with concentration of 0.04 was dispersed into PCM. This transient modeling in two dimensional unit was done and based on FVM, solutions were achieved. Testing the accuracy of model was presented against the experimental data. Selecting homogeneous model for nanomaterial properties help us to reduce computational cost which is high enough due to unsteady process in presence of gravity force. At first, gravity has no effect while in greater time, liquid phase appears and buoyancy force can affect the migration of liquid material and augmenting the melting rate. Augment of time makes the solid fraction to reduce. At Re = 500, as time progress from 20 to 80 min, the solid fraction was changed from 0.188 to 0.0970. As time changes from 20 to 80 min, Tout augments from 366.669 to 367.603. In greater time the fraction of solid reduces and lower amount of heat needed for phase change process which provides higher outlet temperature. At Re = 500, augment of time makes the Tmin of hybrid nanomaterial augments about 1.145%. With growth of Re, outlet temperature change lower with rise of time and 0.81% reduction was reported. At Re = 1000, growth of time from 5 to 20 min leads to 87.3% augmentation in Xd (exergy loss).