Impact of innovative fin design on phase change material melting for thermal energy storage system

•The melting process of Eicosane enhanced with different fins shapes is studied.•The role of convection, material, fin number, and heat flux are examined.•The best geometry is a Y-shaped fin, and the natural convection is neglected.•The melting time decreased by 29% by mounting hexagonal Y-shaped fins.•The most suitable phase change material for a specific heat flux is suggested. Among the main types of thermal energy storage, Latent Heat Storage System has the advantage of storing heat due to the small size temperature changes and the high stored energy. These benefits are attributed to the use of phase change material. However, the most fantastic drawback of phase change material is its low thermal conductivity. To further improve the weak thermal conductivity of phase change materials in these systems, it is imperative to look at different thermal enhancement techniques. This paper discusses two primary thermal improvement approaches for a rectangular thermal energy storage system: fins and a metal matrix. The rectangular enclosure is filled with n-eicosane and the bottom surface is subjected to constant heat flux. A comparison of different structures (conventional fin, Y-shaped fin, and honeycomb structure) with a reference configuration that contains only pure phase change material was discussed. The comparison between these structures is based on the charging time, which is one of the main objectives of this work. Outcomes reveal that adding a hexagonal Y-shaped fin and honeycomb structure can help improve the thermal performance of the latent heat thermal energy storage system and uniformize the temperature compared to the reference configuration. However, the effect of natural convection is not significant for the honeycomb structure but is crucial for the reference configuration. An optimization study was done to study the effect of varying the number of the hexagonal Y-shaped fin, PCM types, and heat flux. Results show that deploying four Y-shaped hexagonal fins is the best convincing argument in favor of improving the performance of the latent storage system. The RT44HC is the predominant coolant at lower heat fluxes, whereas the RT28HC was the best choice at higher heat fluxes. These results could be beneficial in applying phase change material to the thermal management of electronic components.