A numerical investigation of the effects of metal foam characteristics and heating/cooling conditions on the phase change kinetic of phase change materials embedded in metal foam

In the last decade, the use of Phase change materials (PCM) as passive thermal energy storage has been widely studied both numerically and experimentally. Despite their advantages, their thermal conductivity is very low, with a large change in volume during the melting and solidification process. One way to increase their poor thermal conductivity is to embed them into open cells metallic foams. In this paper, a numerical study is conducted on the effects of metal foam properties and heating/cooling conditions (cyclic heating and cooling) on the phase change kinetic of PCM embedded in metal foam. Two types of heating condition were studied: constant and sinusoidal heat flux. The mathematical model is based on the volume-averaging technique. The Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy equation and the local thermal non-equilibrium model that applies a two-energy equation are used. The phase change of PCM is modeled by an enthalpy-porosity method. The numerical results are validated by comparing with experimental data. It is observed from the numerical results that the foam morphology and materials have a significant influence on the melting and solidification of phase change materials. The results also show that the melting time is reduced with sinusoidal heating.