Abstract
Developing a cold thermal energy storage (CTES) technology is one of the most effective methods to solve energy shortage and environmental pollution all over the world. The current study deals with the modelling and simulation of a cold thermal energy storage tank consisting of an polyvinyl chloride pipe (PVC) heat exchanger partially filled with a phase change material (PCM). Water, as the heat transfer fluid (HTF), flows through the inner tubes and the outer one while propylene glycol as the phase change material fills. This paper focuses on studying the effect of the velocity characteristics on the heat transfer efficiency of polyvinyl chloride pipe (PVC) heat exchanger in cold thermal energy storage system by the numerical simulation. In this paper, the detail of heat transfer performance within the heat exchanger is numerically solved using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), for various velocity as well as different heat transfer for optimal design. Several results of changes in the temperature field at the outlet of the cold thermal energy storage tank are presented when the inlet water velocity changes from 1 m/s to 1.4 m/s. The results indicate that low input water velocity will provide better heat exchange efficiency. However, it is required to make sure that the flow inside the heat exchanger is the turbulent flow because the study uses turbulent flow modules.
Highlights
Cold thermal energy storage (CTES) technology is one of the most effective methods to solve energy shortage and environmental pollution all over the world
The results showed that the inlet temperature and velocity of heat fluid have the significant influence on the charging and discharging performance of thermal energy storage tank. et al [11] studied on the modelling and simulation of a thermal energy storage unit consisting of an aluminum tank partially filled with a phase change material
The results showed that the conduction based model was not appropriate for the considered cold energy storage application since free convection plays a crucial role in the heat transfer inside the liquid phase change material
Summary
Cold thermal energy storage (CTES) technology is one of the most effective methods to solve energy shortage and environmental pollution all over the world. Based on the temperature distribution during the discharging, it could be seen that convection heat transfer did not occur but the heat transfer process was mainly the conduction process when the phase-changing agent was melted It seemed that the convection was limited by the geometric properties of the device in the study. The results showed that the inlet temperature and velocity of heat fluid have the significant influence on the charging and discharging performance of thermal energy storage tank. The results showed that the conduction based model was not appropriate for the considered cold energy storage application since free convection plays a crucial role in the heat transfer inside the liquid phase change material. The results indicated that the combined convection and conduction model can better describe the energy transfer in the phase change materials during melting process. The detail of heat transfer performance within the heat exchanger is numerically solved using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), for various velocity as well as different heat transfer for optimal design
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