Thermal storage analysis of a foam-filled PCM heat exchanger subjected to fluctuating flow conditions

Xue Chen, Xiaolei Li, Xinlin Xia, Chuang Sun and Rongqiang Liu

Energy, 2021, vol. 216, issue C

Abstract: A dynamic heat transfer model is developed to investigate the transient thermal storage characteristics of a heat exchanger with foam-filled phase change material (PCM) under the fluctuating flow conditions. The thermal energy storage (TES) configuration of double pipe is considered, while using the highly porous metal foam to intensify the heat transfer in both the PCM and heat transfer fluid (HTF) regions. The paraffin RT50 is used as the PCM and water is selected as the HTF. The energy transport between the inner and outer pipes is thoroughly taken into account. The Darcy-Forchheimer equation is adopted to model the fluid flow through metal foam, and the enthalpy-porosity method is employed to simulate the phase change process within the PCM/foam composite under the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) condition. The performance of heat exchanger during the charging process is firstly predicted under steady HTF flow, and then the effects of fluctuating inlet temperature and velocity are examined respectively. In the case of steady flow, compared with the pure PCM case, inserting metal foam in both the PCM and HTF regions shortens the melting time by 93.6% and augments the heat storage rate by 9 times. Fluctuation in the inlet temperature leads to a visibly oscillating variation in the PCM temperature and heat storage, which are 15 K, 65 kJ at a fluctuation amplitude of 30 K and 17 K, 105 kJ at a periodicity of 400 s. However, fluctuation in the velocity has no considerable influence. The heat exchanger with lower porosity foam presents more sensitive to the fluctuating inlet temperature.

Keywords: Latent heat thermal energy storage; Phase change material; Metal foam; Heat exchanger; Fluctuating flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220323665
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:216:y:2021:i:c:s0360544220323665

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.119259

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().