Hossein Rahideh

Thermal energy storage for building cooling and heating can significantly contribute to energy demand and consumption reduction. Phase change materials represent a subclass of thermal energy storage that utilizes latent heat of fusion and solidification to store thermal energy. Among the various types of heat exchangers, regenerator heat exchangers hold promising applications. This study focuses on the design and optimization of a rotating regenerator incorporating phase change materials for energy storage and exchange. The current modeling was conducted using ANSYS Fluent software in a three-dimensional environment. To generate the computational mesh, ICEM CFD software was employed, and the Delaunay model was used to enhance mesh quality. Following the simulation of the regenerator using computational fluid dynamics, validation was performed for both the phase change material modeling and the rotating regenerator. An essential aspect addressed in the simulation is mesh independence, which was thoroughly investigated in this research, and an optimal mesh size of 0.0025 meters was identified. The height of the rotating matrix and the rotational speed emerged as two critical parameters analyzed in this study, and their optimal values were reported. Increasing the regenerator length up to 350 millimeters results in reduced phase change material melting time. The increase in the desired equipment height positively impacts the effectiveness factor. However, this enhancement yields only about a 5% increase, which is not substantial. The velocity parameter exhibited the most substantial influence on the effectiveness factor, with an estimated impact of approximately 52.