In the present study, we investigated the effect of different structures of a novel leaf vein bionic fin and various
arrangements in the tube on the complete melting time of phase change materials (PCM) in a triplex-tube thermal
energy storage (TES) system. RT82 was adopted as the phase change material. The enthalpy-porosity method ...
In the present study, we investigated the effect of different structures of a novel leaf vein bionic fin and various
arrangements in the tube on the complete melting time of phase change materials (PCM) in a triplex-tube thermal
energy storage (TES) system. RT82 was adopted as the phase change material. The enthalpy-porosity method was
employed for this numerical study. The numerical model was validated against experimental data from a previous reference. The simulation results demonstrate that the novel fins deliver significant reductions in the
duration of complete melting. Based on fin-branched vein numbers of 1, 2 and 3, increasing the fin angle from
30◦ to 60◦ can reduce the complete melting time by up to 14.3%. Additionally, adjusting the fin arrangement can
save up to 6.35% of the complete melting time. The proper arrangement of the fins can improve the heat transfer
performance of the PCM. The non-dimensional quantities analysis of the calculated results shows that the melting
time is negatively correlated with the non-dimensional angle. As the non-dimensional parameter, fin arrangement number decreases from 1, the complete melting time corresponding to the fins of different structures first
decreases and then increases for the phase change material.