Active thermal insulation method based on the principle of source-sink matching

Abstract

To reduce the heat consumption and improve the energy efficiency of the heat storage system, this paper puts forward a method of active thermal insulation in the thermal energy storage system. A heat source area for absorbing surplus heat is set in the heat insulation process, whose heat is transmitted to the heat sink area. And the source-sink matching strategy is discussed. Theoretically, this system can achieve reasonable heat distribution and thermal insulation at the same time. In this work, the water heater is selected as a typical heat storage device, and the theoretical method is verified by designing an active insulation device in the water heater. The results show that a low-temperature zone is generated in the water heater as a result of the active thermal insulation device, which reduces the external heat dissipation. At the same time, the installation position of the radiator is conducted through energy level and exergy analysis. The studied case shows that the energy level matching coefficient of the novel water heater system can reach 0.49 and the exergy efficiency can be increased to 24% compared to a conventional system. The active thermal insulation method is expected to provide an effective energy-saving idea for a variety of heat storage systems.