Lattice Boltzmann simulation on phase change heat transfer in metal foams/paraffin composite phase change material

Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) was used to investigate the latent heat storage (LHS) performance of metal foams/paraffin composite phase change material (CPCM). The effects of metal foams PPI (number of pores per inch) and porosity on PCM melting rate, heat storage capacity and heat storage density were investigated. The results show that the CPCM heat transfer performance is determined by both heat conduction and natural convection. Increasing PPI can enhance heat conduction, but weaken natural convection. When the porosity is small, increasing PPI can enhance LHS performance. When the porosity is large, decreasing PPI can enhance the performance. With porosity decreasing, CPCM heat storage rate is improved and the maximum heat storage capacity almost keeps constant, but the heat storage density dramatically reduces. An optimum metal foams structure with porosity of 0.94 and PPI of 45 is recommended. Further, a performance enhancement scheme with nonuniform metal foams porosity was proposed and numerically validated. The results show that the proposed scheme can improve the uniformity of the heat transfer process and enhance the heat transfer performance. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.