Research on the Heat Transfer Performance of Phase Change Heat Storage Heat Exchangers Based on Heat Transfer Optimization

Xiaodong Dong () and Chuanhui Zhu
Additional contact information
Xiaodong Dong: Xizang Autonomous Region Energy Research Demonstration Center, Lhasa 850015, China
Chuanhui Zhu: The College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Hangzhou 310018, China

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: Thermal storage technology has received increasing attention under the policy of encouraging the development of renewable energy and new clean energy. Optimizing the heat exchange system of phase change thermal storage heat exchangers to obtain better performance has become increasingly urgent. This study comprehensively investigated the actual process of heat transfer and assessed the heat transfer correlation laws between the heat transfer fluids, heat exchange tubes, fins, and phase change materials. Taking the heat exchange efficiency of the heat exchanger as a guide, a simulation was conducted on the effect of the presence and quantity of fins as well as the flow rate of the cooling liquid on the heat exchange efficiency of the heat exchanger. The simulation results showed that too many or too few fins were not conducive to improving heat transfer efficiency. In addition, no positive correlation was observed between the flow rate of the cooling liquid in the heat exchanger and the heat transfer efficiency of the heat exchanger. Specifically, models with slightly slower cooling liquid flow rates had a higher heat transfer efficiency. After a sensitivity analysis, it was found that the number of fins had a more significant effect on the heat transfer efficiency of the heat exchanger than the flow rate of the cooling liquid. The heat exchanger with five fins and a cooling liquid flow rate of 0.1 m/s demonstrated the best heat transfer effect, achieving a temperature drop of 14.76% within 5 min.

Keywords: phase transition; heat exchanger; fins; cooling fluid; flow rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/16/4150/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/16/4150/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:16:p:4150-:d:1460417

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().