An experimental study to validate optimum distance between metal hydride tanks with staggered arrangement for effective thermal management

Abstract

Thermal control is crucial in enhancing the life cycle of metal hydride tanks, which necessitates considering several critical parameters. In addition, a suitable arrangement of a metal hydride bank plays a significant role in transferring the heat efficiently. We have already studied the existence of an optimal distance in theory and proved that the maximized heat transfer rate is a function of the geometric arrangement. In this study, which is the second step of our previous work, we aim to experimentally validate the possible ideal distance in optimized metal hydride array by taking into account the results of our previous study. The experiments are carried out at a triple metal hydride bank with a forced convection system and the effects of optimum distance on the heat transfer performance of the metal hydride bank are analyzed with the staggered arrays in order to validate the results of numerical calculations for staggered metal hydride bank with the pitch-to-diameter ratio of 0.06 and 0.07 at the Reynolds number of 6000 and 12,000, respectively. The results obtained at the end of the experiments are as follows; i) metal hydride storage tanks are strongly affected by the array geometry for maximum heat transfer, especially for small pitch arrays at high Reynolds numbers; ii) the experimental findings are compared with the theoretical models and validated; iii) the overall efficiency of fuel cell-metal hydride system could potentially be increased by simple geometrical arrangements.