Experimental optimization of partial metallic wire mesh configuration applicable in thermal energy storage systems

An experimental setup is developed to investigate the effects of the partial wire mesh on the performance of a rectangular latent heat thermal energy storage system filled with coconut oil as a Phase Change Material (PCM). Since improving the heat transfer is challenging for a PCM, some studies focus on adding metal mesh inside the enclosure of the PCM. Wire meshes improve the conduction heat transfer of the PCM, but a full-coverage wire mesh limits the natural convection. Recently, a partial mesh has been proposed to improve both conduction and convection heat transfer. In the current study, a partial mesh is optimized based on the Multi-Objective Genetic algorithm. The final optimized partial wire mesh has 62.5 % of the total height of the enclosure and a porosity of 93%. The results show that the optimized wire mesh design reduces the charging time by 34%. The optimized design leads to more uniform temperature distributions. Besides improved conduction heat transfer by adding optimum mesh, particle image velocimetry results prove the improvement of natural convection since the velocity at the top of the enclosure is increased by 40%.