Effect of staggered-arranged discontinuous anisotropic fin on thermal energy storage performance

The inherently low thermal conductivity of phase change materials significantly limits their applications in thermal energy storage systems, necessitating advanced heat transfer enhancement techniques. This study proposes a novel staggered-arranged discontinuous anisotropic fin structure for horizontal latent heat thermal energy storage systems. Inspired by three-dimensional topological configurations, the designed structure was numerically evaluated to assess its effects on PCM heat transfer and flow characteristics during specified charging/discharging cycles. Compared with conventional designs, the proposed structure demonstrates significant performance improvements: a 7.57 % enhancement in effective heat storage capacity and 14.44 % in heat release capacity, along with 23.44 % and 17.23 % reductions in temperature distribution non-uniformity indices during charging and discharging processes, respectively. Furthermore, the average thermal resistance was reduced by 20.65 % and 11.08 % for charging and discharging phases. Response surface methodology was employed to optimize the geometric parameters, resulting in an additional 4.86 kJ increase in maximum single-cycle heat capacity and a 0.43 K reduction in average temperature distribution non-uniformity index. The staggered-arranged discontinuous anisotropic fin, designed based on three-dimensional topological characteristics, providing valuable guidance for the development of high-efficiency latent heat storage systems.