As demand for refrigeration and air conditioning increased during the last decade, the opportunities have expanded for using thermal energy storage systems in an economically advantageous manner in place of conventional cooling plants. Many cool storage systems use phase change materials (PCMs) and achieve peak load shifting in buildings. This work presents a comparative study of the total solidification time of a PCM packed in two containers, rectangular and cylindrical shell, having the same volume and surface area of heat transfer. Employing the enthalpy method, which enables decoupling of the temperature and liquid fraction fields, the governing equation for two-dimensional isothermal phase change is discretized using the Crank-Nicholson finite difference scheme. The results are presented for various PCM masses in the storage containers and inlet temperatures of the heat transfer fluid (HTF).
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