Phase transition investigation of novel organic phase change material: Numerical approach

Transient liquefaction of organic phase change material (PCM) based on industrially processed pork fat, i.e. lard, was studied in this work. Two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for transient heat transfer was developed and numerically tested. The numerical analysis provides insight into the intensity of heat transfer and the rate of phase transition of a new relatively inexpensive environmentally friendly phase change material. The rectangular well- insulated domain in which the PCM is located was exposed to a continuous plate heat source. The developed model predicts heat dissipation well and has proven to be relatively robust in terms of the time step as a result of high-quality hexahedral mesh. The time required for the complete phase transition of lard and the limitations of the commercial phase transition model was determined. The developed model represents the first step toward a low-cost experimental setup purposely designed for latent heat investigations. The numerical analysis integrated with the experimental approach will help to establish a new procedure for determining the latent heat of different PCMs in the future.