Phase change material (PCM) offers strong potential for PCM cooling systems but suffers from low thermal conductivity, high viscosity, and thermal stratification, limiting heat transfer performance. To address these limitations, this study investigate...
Phase change material (PCM) offers strong potential for PCM cooling systems but suffers from low thermal conductivity, high viscosity, and thermal stratification, limiting heat transfer performance. To address these limitations, this study investigates bubble-driven flow as an active convective enhancement method and examines its influence on local bubble–PCM interactions and system-level melting behavior. In the first part, bubble–PCM interaction was analyzed by varying three bubble injection positions. Using shadowgraphy and PIV, bubble rising behavior, size, trajectory, and shape were characterized. Depending on injection position, bubbles rose either immediately or after coalescence, producing small elliptical, large elliptical, or jellyfish-like shapes, which were classified based on the d_eq/L_avg. Jellyfish-like bubbles appeared when d_eq/L_avg was larger than 0.64 and produced the strongest circulation, while small elliptical bubbles showed the highest rising velocity. Bubble injection near the heated wall generated cooperative flow with natural convection and most effectively disrupted the thermal boundary layer, demonstrating its strong advantage for enhancing convective heat transfer. In the second part, the melting behavior of a bubble-driven system was evaluated for different PCM height and width. Bubble injection strengthened internal circulation, suppressed thermal stratification, and accelerated melting. As the height increased, the upward–downward circulation structure remained similar, and the energy absorption rate converged. In contrast, horizontal expansion revealed a finite downward-flow reach (~70 mm). Beyond this limit, melting in the lower region slowed, reducing heat absorption improvement. Two nondimensional correlations were developed for bubble-driven and non-bubble-driven flow conditions. Additionally, the energy analysis showed up to 58.5% enhancement by bubble-driven flow while consuming less than 0.35% of the PCM stored energy. Overall, this work demonstrates that bubble-driven flow is an efficient and scalable method to mitigate thermal stratification and enhance heat transfer in PCM cooling systems, providing practical design guidelines for future PCM-based thermal management applications.