Abstract

Research in thermal energy storage based on nanoencapsulated phase change materials (PCM) grows and spreads at a fast pace currently. Owing to the complexity that this discipline entails, different scientific and technical communities are involved in its study. One major problem for nanoencapsulated PCM is determining the thickness of its shell since a compromise between mechanical resistance and heat storage must be made in order to adjust this value. Numerical simulations appear to be suitable to gain in understanding while trying to reduce the number and the cost of experiments to be conducted. In this connection, the aim of the present work is to develop a numerical formulation within the finite element (FE) method to study thermomechanical behaviour with phase change. For this purpose, a consistent thermodynamic approach is performed by defining an enthalpy balance in order to obtain the set of coupled governing equations. Then, these equations are discretized and numerically solved. Three different numerical schemes for the phase change problem have been implemented to compare their performance. Finally, several benchmarks are presented to validate the numerical implementation and to highlight its accuracy.