Heat transfer enhancement in PCM storage tanks through topology optimization of finning material distribution

Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage provides very high energy density and nearly constant operating temperatures. However, it suffers of very low thermal conductivity that considerably limits the heat transfer rate. The insertion of highly conductive fins looks the most promising option for heat transfer enhancement but raises the fundamental question of how to optimally distribute a limited amount of highly conductive material. In this paper, we show that density-based topology optimization is a very powerful tool to generate optimized devices for heat transfer enhancement in finned shell-and-tube PCM storage tanks. We consider 2D steady-state diffusion with uniform heat generation and we minimize the global heat transfer resistance. The topological designs reduces the maximum overheating of more than 84 % compared to a previous design obtained by parameter shape optimization.