Structural Optimization of Heat Transfer Fins in the Energy Storage System Revisited

This paper explores a new heat transfer algorithm that is independent of changes in fin geometry and material properties. By applying dynamic programming and differential-based reasoning to recursively calculate heat transfer between elemental units, the algorithm can rapidly determine heat transfer characteristics while relying only on the thermal conductivity of the fins. In addition, to more concisely and accurately reflect the heat transfer performance of a thermal energy storage system, this study proposes a new performance evaluation method that comprehensively considers both heat transfer speed and the proportion of phase change materials within the available space. Furthermore, because triangular fins occupy less space, the heat transfer characteristics of triangular fins were analyzed using a distance field between fins. The results indicate that inverted triangular fins exhibit superior heat transfer performance. The heat transfer duration of triangular fins with different sizes, layouts, and quantities was evaluated using a heat transfer model together with experimental coarse- and fine-sampling methods. The performance of different fin configurations was then assessed using the proposed evaluation method. The results show that the optimal configuration is achieved when the inverted triangular fin has a height of 0.029 m, a base length of 0.0024 m, and a fin angle of π/10, yielding a performance evaluation value of 3.572. Compared with the optimal parameters of an equilateral upright triangular fin, the heat transfer performance of the inverted triangular fin improves by 17.3%. Compared with fixed-size rectangular fin parameters, the performance improves by 103.6%.