New correlation for transient laminar natural convection heat transfer in a differentially heated square cavity between air and a PCM layer

This paper proposes a new correlation to evaluate the heat transfer coefficient between a vertical wall containing a phase change material (PCM) and air in a square enclosure. This correlation was determined in order to simulate the transient process during PCM discharge and its effect on the heat transfer inside the cavity without using complex CFD models. A 2D CFD model based on the resolution of Navier–Stokes and energy equations inside the air and the PCM was previously validated. It was used to generate numerical data in order to build the proposed heat transfer correlation. The new correlation is Nu = 0.186 · Ra 0.28 θ 0.271 Ste 0.022 valid for: 10 5 ≤ Ra ≤ 4.310 7 , 0.05 ≤ θ ≤ 1 and 0.05 ≤ ste ≤ 0.6 . The accuracy of the proposed correlation versus the correlations established without phase change is analysed through a simplified model considering only the PCM layer and replacing the air cavity by a flux condition with an appropriate heat transfer coefficient. The relative error being lower than 1%, the new correlation shows a better agreement with the CFD results than existing correlations.