engleski

High temperature latent energy storage performance improvement

The renewed interest in concentrated solar power plants has intensified the research in high temperature latent storages. The characteristic problem of low thermal conductivity of high temperature phase change materials (PCM) is being tackled by improving effective thermal conductivity, either by mixing it with different high conductivity materials or by improving the heat exchanger design. In the later case, accurate and cost-effective models are necessary for the simulation of different designs and relatively long transient runs. In this paper the mathematical model of heat transfer and phase change inside of the PCM and the heat exchanger is defined and tested. The focus of the paper is on the effective modeling of heat transfer inside the PCM and conjugate the heat transfer between the heat exchanger material and the PCM. The presented model will provide basis for heat storage and heat exchanger design optimization. Fined shell and tube heat exchanger was used to test the model for optimization purposes. It is shown that even simple two variable optimization of fin angle and length can shorten the charging time significantly.

Heat storage ; PCM modelling ; Heat exchange optimization

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