Heat transfer study of phase change material incorporated into a cavity of a hollow brick during melting

The use of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) in the building sector is an attractive solution contributing to the reduction of energy consumption as well as the improvement of the thermal comfort. To achieve this objective, it is required to study the complex phenomena of phase changes when PCM incorporated in different types of building materials. In this study, PCM is incorporating in a cavity of hollow brick and check the effect of natural convection during melting process by compared between two cases, the first the case when there is only a pure conduction and for the second case is when natural convection is not neglected in the upper part of this cavity. For the numerical model, the finite element method is using with modification in the specific heat of PCM accounting for the increase amount of energy, in the form of latent heat, needed to melt the PCM over its melting temperature range. The result showed that the effect of natural convection is limited and can represented by using un equivalent thermal conductivity