The Effect of Aluminum Porous Network Characteristics on the Complete Melting Time of Coconut Oil and the Temperature Uniformity of the Wall

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Seyyed Ali Naghedifar
Mohammad Moghiman
Mojtaba Mamourian
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
10.22034/stme.2025.498928.1094
Abstract
In enclosures containing phase change materials (PCMs), walls subjected to a constant heat flux experience localized temperature rise. The objective of this study is to minimize the complete melting time while ensuring uniform temperature distribution on the heated wall, while maintaining the thermal capacity of the enclosure. In this study, an aluminum porous network occupies half of the enclosure containing coconut oil as the PCM. The effects of porous network placement, enclosure inclination angle relative to the horizontal, aspect ratio of the enclosure, and pore density of the porous structure on the complete melting time of the PCM, the maximum temperature deviation of the wall from the mean temperature, and the uniformity of the temperature distribution on the heated wall are numerically analyzed using ANSYS Fluent.
The results indicate that increasing the pore density from 5 to 20 pores per inch enhances temperature uniformity but increases the complete melting time by up to 12.6%. When the metallic network is positioned in the lower half of the enclosure, the shortest melting time of 2340 seconds is achieved. Increasing the aspect ratio from 2 to 1 and then to 0.5 improves temperature uniformity but has minimal impact on the complete melting time. The enclosure inclination angle has a significant influence on the complete melting time but a negligible effect on temperature uniformity. Specifically, at an inclination of -30 degrees, the melting time is 39% shorter than at +30 degrees. Finally, the optimal combination of these parameters is determined using the Taguchi method.
Keywords
Semi-porous aluminum cavity
Taguchi
Temperature uniformity index
Complete melting time
Coconut oil
Subjects
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Science and Technology in Mechanical Engineering
Volume 3, Issue 2 - Serial Number 5
January 2025
Pages 153-172

  • Receive Date 09 January 2025
  • Revise Date 09 March 2025
  • Accept Date 14 April 2025
  • First Publish Date 14 April 2025
  • Publish Date 14 April 2025