Thermal and Phase Change Process in a Locally Curved Open Channel Equipped with PCM-PB and Heater during Nanofluid Convection under Magnetic Field

Abstract

Thermal performance and phase-change dynamics in a channel having a cavity equipped with a heater and phase-change material (PCM)-packed bed (PB) region are analyzed during nanoliquid convection under an inclined magnetic field. Curvature of the upper wall above the PCM zone is also considered by using the finite element method. Impacts of curvature of the upper wall (between 0.01H and 0.6H, H-channel height), strength of magnetic field (MGF) (Hartmann number between 0 and 40), height (between 0.1H and 0.4H) and number (between 5 and 17) of heaters on the thermal performance and phase-change dynamics are studied. In the interior and wall near regions of the PCM-PB, the curvature effects become opposite, while phase completion time (tF) rises by about 42% at the highest radius of the curvature. Imposing MGF and increasing its strength has positive impacts on the phase change and thermal performance. There is a reduction in tF by about 45.2% and 41.8% when MGF is imposed at Ha = 40 for pure fluids and nanofluids. When thermal performance for all different cases is compared, using MGF+nanofluid+PCM provides the most favorable case. When the reference case (only pure fluid without MGF and PCM) is used, including nanoparticles results in an improvement of 33.7%m while it is further increased to 71.1% when PCM-PB is also installed. The most favorable case by using MGF, nanofluid and PCM-PB results in thermal performance improvement of about 373.9% as compared to the reference configuration.