A novel latent heat storage unit by introducing jet breakup of phase change material

Abstract

To enhance the heat transfer performance in discharging process, the jet breakup of molten phase change material was introduced into a real scale heat storage unit by numerical method. In order to fully understand its performance, this paper conducted a numerical simulation on discharging process under different temperatures and flow rates of heat transfer fluid. The results showed that the heat transfer performance of this novel unit is superior to the conventional type due to the counterflow and the large heat transfer surface area. When increasing the mass flow rate of heat transfer fluid from 1.29 kg/s to 2.58 kg/s, the preheating time was shortened by 14.9%. When reducing the heat transfer fluid temperature from 38 °C to 18 °C, the preheating time was increased by 10.5%. However, the counterflow could also make small size droplets outflow the unit.