An experimental investigation of the heat transfer and energy storage characteristics of a compact latent heat thermal energy storage system for domestic hot water applications

Mohamed Fadl and Philip C. Eames

Energy, 2019, vol. 188, issue C

Abstract: This paper presents the experimental performance analysis of a latent heat thermal energy storage system (LHTESS) designed for domestic hot water (DHW) applications. The designed, fabricated and characterised thermal store comprised of a vertically oriented multi-pass tube heat exchanger in a rectangular cross-section container filled with phase change material (PCM) paraffin wax RT44HC. The experimental investigation evaluated the heat transfer within the system, measured the transient temperature distribution, determined the cumulative thermal energy stored, charging and discharging time and the instantaneous charging and discharging power. The experimental work was conducted under controlled experimental conditions using different heat transfer fluid (HTF) inlet temperatures and different volume flow rates for store charging and discharging. It was found that during charging natural convection in the melt played a significant role. During discharging thermal conduction dominates and natural convection has an insignificant impact on the LHTESS performance. This is due to the development of a solid layer of PCM around the heat transfer tubes which increases the thermal resistance and reduces heat transfer to the liquid PCM. Higher HTF inlet temperature during charging significantly decreased store charging time. Increasing HTF inlet temperature from 60 to 70 °C shortened the charging time by 3.5 h, a further increase to 80 °C decreased melting time by a further 2 h.

Keywords: Latent heat; PCM; Thermal energy storage; Natural convection; Multi-pass tube heat exchanger; Experimental investigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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/S0360544219317785
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:188:y:2019:i:c:s0360544219317785

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116083

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 ().