Numerical Study of Convection Melting Inside Ice Storage Systems by the Lattice Boltzmann Model

Abstract

The internal melt ice-on-coil tank with horizontal pipes is widely used in ice storage systems. The tank’s discharge process is greatly affected by the natural convection process that is caused by melting of the phase change material outside the pipes. To achieve an optimal arrangement of the pipes, a double-population lattice Boltzmann model was developed to simulate the transient solid-liquid phase change behavior in a section of an internal-melt ice-on-coil thermal storage tank with nine aligned built-in horizontal pipes. The evolutions in the phase change interface and melting rate was illustrated with different pipe shapes and pipe connections. Based on the melting rate, the whole melting process was divided into three stages: sharp decrease stage, continuous decrease stage, and snail-melting stage. The numerical results showed that a high melting rate was obtained by preferentially assigning the high-temperature pipes to the upper part of the tank, while a stable melting rate could be obtained when high-temperature pipes were preferentially assigned to the bottom part of the tank.