Solidification of PCM around a curved tube

This paper presents the results of an experimental and numerical investigation on the solidification of PCM around a curved cold tube to determine the effects of the Dean number, cooling fluid flow rate and its temperature on the interface velocity, the time for complete solidification and the solidified mass. To formulate the solidification process around a curved tube a conduction model was used together with the immobilization technique and the Landau transform. The energy equation and the associated boundary conditions were discretized by the finite control volumes method. The computational program was optimized by numerical experiments and the optimized form was used to validate the model. Comparisons of the numerical predictions and experiments to investigate the effects the Dean number on the solidified mass showed agreement within 1% while the interface velocity and the time for complete solidification showed agreements of about 8% and less than 6%, respectively. The effects of the flow rate of the working fluid could be predicted within less than 8% for the solidified mass and to less than 4% for both the interface velocity and the time for complete solidification. The effects of the temperature of the working fluid are predictable to within less than 8% for the time for complete solidification and the interface velocity.