Numerical simulation of solidification process in an ice-on-coil ice storage system with serpentine tubes

Energy consumption is rising around the world and most of the activities in the developed countries are dependent on electric energy. Thermal energy storages are one the ways to reduce energy consumption and balance the electrical power usage during the day. With thermal energy storages, or to be precise, with ice storage systems, energy usage peak can the shifted from the afternoon or early night to low-load hours of morning or midnights. In this study, a 3D unsteady numerical analysis was done in order to examine an ice storage system equipped with serpentine tube heat exchanger. The influence of two geometrical parameters, namely, tube diameter and serpentine tube row distance were investigated. The examined range for diameter and the serpentine tube row spacing were 15-21 and 30-100 mm, respectively. The results showed that placing the serpentine tube rows more distant to each other increases the ice formation so that the ice formation rate for the highest serpentine tube row distance compared to when the serpentine tube row distance is the lowest is higher by 24.68%. On the contrary, with a larger tube diameter, the rate of ice formation was decreased so that the smallest diameter had almost 5.9% more ice formation rate in comparison with the case with the largest tube diameter.