Journal
JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING-TRANSACTIONS OF THE ASME
Volume 139, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
ASME
DOI: 10.1115/1.4034642
Keywords
phase change materials; enthalpy porosity; gain; hybrid system; sensible only system
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Smart Net-Zero Energy Buildings Strategic Research Network (SNEBRN)
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The dynamic performance of a thermal energy storage tank containing phase change material (PCM) cylinders is investigated computationally. Water flowing along the length of the cylinders is used as the heat transfer fluid. A numerical model based on the enthalpy-porosity method is developed and validated against experimental data from the literature. The performance of this hybrid PCM/water system was assessed based on the gain in energy storage capacity compared to a sensible only system. Gains can reach as high as 179% by using 50% packing ratio and 10 degrees C operating temperature range in water tanks. Gains are highly affected by the choice of PCM module diameter; they are almost halved as diameter increases four times. They are also affected by the mass flow rate nonlinearly. A nondimensional analysis of the energy storage capacity gains as a function of the key nondimensional parameters (Stefan, Fourier, and Reynolds numbers) as well as PCM melting temperature was performed. The simulations covered ranges of 0.1 < Ste < 0.4, 0< Fo< 600, 20< Re< 4000, 0.2 < (rho C-P)* < 0: 8, and 0.2 < theta(m) < 0.8.
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