Abstract
The energy transport inside a phase change material (PCM) based thermal energy storage system using metal foam as an enhancement technique is investigated numerically. The paraffin is used as the PCM and water as the heat transfer fluid (HTF). The transient heat transfer during the charging and discharging processes is solved, based on the volume averaged conservation equations. The flow in PCM/foam and HTF/foam composites is modelled by the Forchheimer-extended Darcy equation, while the two-temperature model is employed to account for the local thermal non-equilibrium effect between the foam matrix and fluid phase. The results show that the overall performance is greatly improved by inserting metal foam in both HTF and PCM sides. A nearly 84.9% decrease in the time needed for the total process is found compared with the case of pure PCM, and 40% compared with the case of metal foam insert only in the PCM side. Foam porosity and HTF inlet temperature greatly affect the dynamic heat storage/release process.
Highlights
Thermal energy storage (TES) using the latent heat of phase change material (PCM) has be used nowadays in numerous applications and attracted considerable attention [1]
The shell-and-tube TES unit was experimentally investigated by Yang et al [14], they showed that completely melting the metal foam/PCM composite takes over 1/3 less time than that of pure paraffin
PCM-based system is composed several with zones both filled with metal foam is established, including the local thermal occupied by heat transfer fluid (HTF) and PCM which are respectively water and paraffin, similar as the configuration in non-equilibrium coupledare heat transfer the HTF/foam-solid wall-PCM/foam system, and system phase
Summary
Thermal energy storage (TES) using the latent heat of phase change material (PCM) has be used nowadays in numerous applications and attracted considerable attention [1]. The shell-and-tube TES unit was experimentally investigated by Yang et al [14], they showed that completely melting the metal foam/PCM composite takes over 1/3 less time than that of pure paraffin. The charging and discharging processes are usually individually investigated, and many numerical works initialize the PCM as a uniform temperature during the release process, which may cause a different initial non-equilibrium effect, coupled heat transfer in the HTF/foam-solid wall-PCM/foam system, and phase change in PCM. HTF and PCM zones both filled with metal foam is established, including the local thermal occupied by HTF and PCM which are respectively water and paraffin, similar as the configuration in non-equilibrium coupledare heat transfer the HTF/foam-solid wall-PCM/foam system, and system phase [23]. The numerical model is created under the following assumptions: (1) the water flow and liquid
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