Aspect ratio effects on the freezing and melting processes inside a thermal storage cell
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abstract
Energy savings, energy management, energy storage, etc., are concepts used and studied more and more frequently due to concerns about pollution and depletion of fossil fuels. Current technical literature on the subject of thermal energy storage includes analyses of application of thermal energy storage systems for power plants, applications of thermal energy storage in very hot regions of the earth, and detailed analyses of the effect of phase change temperature on the efficiency of the thermal storage process. This paper presents an analysis of the charge and discharge process in a latent thermal energy storage cell. An individual cell is analyzed to learn how its behavior affects the performance of a thermal energy storage system. The analysis considers the exchange of thermal energy between a thermal energy storage cell and a source of thermal energy. Two cases are considered, i) a process in which the phase change material melts and freezes when a constant and uniform temperature is imposed at the lower surface of the cell, and ii) a process in which the phase change material melts and freezes when a fluid with a constant inlet temperature flows under the cell. The effect of the aspect ratio of the energy storage cell is analyzed in detail as a possible method to enhance heat transfer and improve performance of the thermal energy storage system. The results include, for different sizing or aspect ratio of the storage cell, the evolution of the solid-liquid interface, the determination of how much energy is stored throughout the whole process of charging, comparisons of how fast solidification occurs, and comparisons of how fast energy is discharged.
