2008---Numerical simulation and parametric study on new type of high temperature

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Numerical simulation and parametric study on new type of high temperature latent heat thermal energy storage systemChaxiu Guo a,*,Wujun Zhang baSchool of Chemical Engineering,Zhengzhou University,450001Zhengzhou,PR ChinabHenan Tite Mineral and Metallurgical Safety Engineering Consultants Co.Ltd.,45008Zhengzhou,PR ChinaReceived 14December 2006;received in revised form 7October 2007;accepted 30October 2007Available online 20December 2007AbstractCommercial acceptance and the economics of solar power generation using direct steam technology in parabolic troughs require the design and development of efficient,cost effective high temperature latent heat thermal energy storage systems (HTLHTES).Here,the heat transfer enhancement in the HTLHTES by using aluminium foils is presented.The phase change material (PCM)is initially liquid,and fills the space around the tube,foil and shell,while the heat transfer fluid (water)flows inside the tube.Transient two dimensional heat conduction problems are solved using the Fluent 6.2software when heat is extracted from the PCM during the discharging process,yielding the phase interface position,temperature distribution,liquid fraction and surface heat flux as functions of time and the time of complete discharge.Parametric studies are conducted to assess how the performance of the storage is affected by the geometry,thermal and boundary conditions,which leads to correlations for the time of complete discharge.The computation results show that adding alu-minium foils is an efficient way to enhance the heat transfer in the HTLHTES,and with the help of the correlations presented,the per-formance and optimum design of the HTLHTES can be investigated under different conditions.Ó2007Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.Keywords:PCM;Heat transfer enhancement;Numerical simulation;Thermal energy storage1.BackgroundLatent heat thermal energy storage systems (LHTES)that utilize phase change materials have received great attention in solar thermal applications because of their large heat storage capacity and their isothermal behavior during charging and discharging processes.Nowadays,most research on LHTES is often interested in applications at temperature below 100°C,such as air conditioning and hot water preparation by storage of solar energy [1]but less in high temperature ones,such as solar thermal power generation.Solar thermal power plants based on parabolic trough collectors are today the most successful solar technologyfor electricity generation.A further option to augment the performance of this technology is direct steam genera-tion (DSG)since it can result in lower investment and oper-ation costs as well as reduced environmental risk in case of oil leaks.After successful demonstration of the feasibility of DSG in parabolic troughs power plants [2],development of thermal storage for DSG is needed to extend the opera-bility of such plants beyond sunshine hours.Regarding the efficiency of the DSG process,isothermal storage systems,namely LHTES,are required.Fig.1shows a simplified DSG power plant with a high temperature latent heat ther-mal energy storage system (HTLHTES)for steam at pres-sures between 15bar and 100bar corresponding to saturation temperatures between 190°C and 310°C.The concept is as follows.The heat transfer fluid is water/steam.The condensing steam from the solar field is used to liquefy the PCM during the charging process;during the discharging process,the storage provides heat to gener-0196-8904/$-see front matter Ó2007Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2007.10.025*Corresponding author.Tel./fax:+8637163887336.E-mail address:guochaxiu@ (C.Guo)./locate/enconmanAvailable online at Energy Conversion and Management 49(2008)919–927ate steam by solidifying the PCM.Nitrate/nitrite salts and eutectic mixtures of these salts,such as lithium nitrate (LiNO3)and potassium nitrate(KNO3),are the most promising PCMs considered for application in the HTLH-TES due to their enthalpy and economic aspects.The mass specific latent heat of these materials is in the range of100–300kJ/kg;the mass specific density is about2000kg/m3. However,there is a significant challenge in the design of HTLHTES because of the low thermal conductivity of the salts,which is usually below0.5W/(m K).The thermal conductivity of the PCM affects significantly the required heat transfer area and performance of the storage unit, especially in the case of solidification since the main heat transfer mechanism through the solidified PCM layer is conduction;while in melting,natural convection occurs in the melt layer,and this generally increases the heat trans-fer rate compared to that of the solidification process[3–5]. Hence,regarding the low values of typical PCMs(<0.5W/ (m K)),the design of a cost effective HTLHTES requires the development of proper heat transfer enhancement tech-niques to compensate for the low thermal conductivity.In past decades,several methods have been suggested to enhance heat transfer in low temperature LHTS systems in which the PCM is paraffin or n-octadecane.For instances, having the PCM inserted in a metal matrix[6–8],microen-capsulation of PCM[9,10],or producing a paraffin–graph-ite composite material with high thermal conductivity(up to20–30W/mK)to improve the heatflux in PCMs [11,12].Moreover,the use offins with different configura-tions has been proposed by various researchers as an effi-cient means to improve the charge/discharge capacity of a low temperature LHTS system[13–18],but the results are limited to their research questions.A number of numerical methods have been developed to examine the behavior of low temperature LHTES[19,20]. However,in many cases,the numerical codes have generally been tailored to solve only a particular problem, which represents a marked limitation.Recent years have seen a growing interest in designing PCM energy storage systems,so commercial CFD codes,such as Fluent[21], have included dealing with problems involving a solid–liquid phase change.Since the present work is aimed for development of a HTLHTES that can be integrated into solar power gener-ation using DSG in parabolic trough plants and the stored heat is required to be released in a shorter time,the study is focused on enhancement of the discharging process.A new type of HTLHTES structure using aluminium foils to improve the heat transfer is put forward,and the eutectic system KNO3–NaNO3has been selected as the PCM with a solidification temperature of220°ing the Fluent version 6.2[21],the heat transfer enhancement of the HTLHTES is numerically studied since analytical solution could not be developed for the problem of the phase change heat transfer due to its nonlinear nature at the mov-ing interface.Detailed temperature and phasefields have been obtained to account for the evolution of the heat transfer in the system as the PCM solidifies.Moreover, detailed parametric investigations are conducted to assess the effects of various geometric and thermal parameters on the discharge process of the HTLHTES with foils. The aim of this work is to analyze and show how the obtained information can be used to design a new type of HTLHTES.2.Model description and modelling2.1.Model descriptionThe new type of HTLHTES considered in the present study is shown in Figs.2and3presents a typical foil-tube arrangement.Aluminium foils are arranged orthogonal to the axis of the steam tubes and KNO3–NaNO3as the PCMfills the spaces between the foils and tubes,while water/steamflows inside the tubes of radius r i.The tubes are staggered so that around each of them,there is a sym-metry circle of radius r e(dotted lines)at which conduction heatfluxes remain null.As a result,the system to be ana-lyzed here may be represented by one tube as illustrated in Fig.4.Because the HTLHTES has a symmetrical struc-ture,the computational domain can be further simplified to handle only one symmetry unit cell where the planes of920 C.Guo,W.Zhang/Energy Conversion and Management49(2008)919–927symmetry are in the middle of the foil and midway between two adjacent foils,as depicted in Fig.4.The physical prop-erties of the PCM and the aluminium foil,which were mea-sured in our laboratory,are summarized in Table1.In the present study,initially,the PCM is in a liquid phase at its solidification temperature,and the heat transferfluid, water,is considered to beflowing with a saturation temper-ature,which is lower than the initial temperature of the liquid PCM to provide its change of phase.The water becomes saturated steam after absorbing heat extracted from the PCM,so the tube wall temperature,T w,can be assumed as a constant temperature along the axial direction.Geometric and thermal parameters have significant effects on the performance of the system.So the critical parameters presented in Table2,such as the foil pitch (2w),foil thickness(2v),distance between steam tubes (2r f),steam tube radius(r i),thermal conductivity of PCM (k pcm)as well as tube wall temperature,T w,are selected to investigate the influences.The reference condition for the new type of HTLHTES is also given in Table2,which is considered as a typical operation condition.In the simu-lations,the effects of the parameters are investigated indi-vidually,i.e.all other parameters remain at the reference values as one of the parameters is changed.2.2.Modelling of the HTLHTESThe numerical solution of the HTLHTES uses the enthalpy–porosity approach[22],which is implemented in Fluent6.2software.By this approach,the porosity in each cell is set equal to the liquid fraction in that cell.Based on an enthalpy balance,the liquid fraction b is computed at each iteration.b takes the value b=1in the liquid phase, b=0in the solid phase and0<b<1in the mushy zone (partially solidified region).In this study,constant thermophysical characteristics of the PCM are considered in the analysis,and the phenome-non of solidification is controlled by pure conduction since natural convection has a negligible effect compared to the effect of heat conduction in the solidification process [3,4].So,during the discharging process,the main heat transfer mode in the HTLHTES is conduction,and heat is transferred from the PCM and foils to thefluid through the solidified PCM and by conduction along the foils, respectively.With the enthalpy–porosity model and the foregoing assumptions,the energy equation used for the HTLHTES isqko Ho t¼1roo rro To rþo2To x2;ð1ÞTable1Physical properties of the PCM and aluminiumProperties PCM(KNO3–NaNO3)Aluminium Density,q,kg/m320002700Heat capacity,c p,J/Kg K1500991 Thermal conductivity,k,W/m K0.5237 Latent heat,L,J/kg100,000Solidification temperature,T m,K493Table2Critical parameter variations of the HTLHESParameters2w(mm)2r f(mm)2v(mm)r i(mm)k pcm(W/(m K))T w(K)Referencecondition10112160.5473 Parameterrange5–2060–1600.5–46–500.5–10463–483C.Guo,W.Zhang/Energy Conversion and Management49(2008)919–927921where q is the density,k is the thermal conductivity,T is the temperature and H is the total enthalpy,defined as the sum of the sensible enthalpy h and the latent heat en-thalpy L b,that isH¼hþD H¼hþL b;ð2Þwhere L is the latent heat of the material,and h can further be written ash¼h refþZ TT refc pd Tð3Þin which h ref is the reference enthalpy at the reference tem-perature T ref and c p is the specific heat.The liquid fraction b in the solidification process is defined asb¼0T<T mðsolidÞ;0À1T¼T mðmushy zoneÞ;1T>T mðliquidÞ:8><>:ð4ÞThe boundary conditions for the HTLHTES can be written asAt r¼r i:T¼T w;ð5aÞAt r¼r e:o To r¼0;ð5bÞAt x¼0:o To x¼0;ð5cÞAt x¼wþv:o To x¼0:ð5dÞInitially,the w.5hole system is at the solidification tem-perature of the PCM,i.e.Tðx;r;t¼0Þ¼T m:ð6Þ3.Validation of the numerical modelIn order to validate the performance of the numerical model adopted here,one dimensional and two dimensional numerical tests have been conducted.Test case1is that with a HTLHTES without foils.As an ongoing compari-son case,the PCM,geometry,boundary and initial condi-tions are selected to be the same as in Fig.4but without the foils of size r i=6mm,r e=56mm and w=5mm.Initially, the liquid PCM is at its solidification temperature, T0=493K,and solidification of the PCM begins immedi-ately when a constant tube wall temperature of473K is suddenly imposed.The numerical simulation using Fluent software is per-formed on a non-uniform grid size of60in the PCM radial direction.A time step of0.1s is used throughout the calcu-lation.The residual convergence criterion for the energy equation is set to1Â10À6,and convergence has been ensured at every time step.Figs.5and6present the com-parisons of the numerical results with the theoretical solu-tions[5].Fig.5shows the result for the phase interface position as a function of time along the radial direction.The temperature distribution T s in the solid PCM at time 8000s is presented in Fig.6.As can be observed,the agree-ments are very convincing.The second test is illustrated in Fig.7.A two dimen-sional cavity of aÂb(a=50mm,b=100mm)isfilled with the homogeneous PCM,initially liquid at T m,and is subjected to a constant temperature T w<T m on all four sides.The PCM used for analysis is presented in Table1, and the wall temperature T w=473K.The total discharge time of the numerical result is6606s,compared with the approximate solution[23]of6718s,namely the relative error is about1.67%.Therefore,the2D numerical method and the model adopted here are correct,and the Fluent software can be used to simulate the new type of HTLHTES.140001600018000rdirection.922 C.Guo,W.Zhang/Energy Conversion and Management49(2008)919–9274.Numerical results and discussion4.1.The new type of HTLHTES under reference condition In order to study the effect of the foils on the discharging process,first,the simulation of the HTLHTES under the reference condition is performed.The numerical model has been constructed to simulate two dimensional,axisym-metric solidification in the HTLHTES.The simulation is performed on a grid size of 60(radial)Â15(axial PCM)Â2(foil thickness).Numerical experiments show that the grid chosen in the present study is good enough for accurate results,and further refinement in grid size led to insignificant change and unnecessary increase in computa-tional load.In this study,the segregated solver in which each discrete governing equation is linearized implicitly with respect to that equation’s dependent variable has been applied for solving the equations [24].The energy equations have been discretized with the first order upwind scheme.The time step size in the calculation is 0.1s,which is chosen after a careful examination in which smaller time steps did not show noticeable changes in the results for the heat flux and melt fraction throughout the whole process.For convergence,the residual criterion for the energy equations of 1Â10À7is set,which is checked at each time step.Compared with the results of a HTLHTES without foils (i.e.test case 1),the simulation results for the HTLHTES with foils are presented in Figs.8and 9.Fig.8exemplifies the temperature distribution at time 800s and 1500s.It can be seen that solidification of the PCM starts on the tube wall surface and spreads inside the PCM container.As the solidification front progresses,the temperature curve moves downward,and the temperature profile does not reach the steady state condition until all of the PCM is solidified.The foil cools quickly compared to the PCM because of its better thermal conductivity.In comparison with test case 1,the PCM temperature in the HTLHTESwith foils changes not only with radius but also with the x -coordinate at these certain times,while the temperature changes only with radius in test case 1.The temperature in the solidified PCM is much lower than that in test case 1at the same time and same radius,which means the speed of discharge is much higher,as can also be seen in Fig.9.Fig.9shows the liquid–solid interface at different time peri-ods.As noticed,two dimensional heat transfer takes place in the new type of HTLHTES,and the discharging process is significantly accelerated.It can be seen that the speed of discharge in the axial direction is faster than that in the radial direction because the foil has a major role in the heat transfer due to its better thermal conductivity and the extracted heat mainly moves through the foils to the heat transfer fluid.The simulation indicates that the total dis-charge time for the new type of HTLHTES is only 1756s,in contrast with 54,504s for test case 1.Therefore,from the above analyses,one can conclude that adding alu-minium foils in a HTLHTES is a more efficient way of enhancing the solidification heat transfer for aPCM.Fig.8.Effect of foils on PCM temperature at different times.C.Guo,W.Zhang /Energy Conversion and Management 49(2008)919–9279234.2.Parametric studyNext,a series of numerical calculations for the new type of HTLHTES shown in Table2are simulated in order to assess the effects of the parameters on the performance of the HTLHTES during the discharge process.All numerical simulations are conducted with the grid size and time step similar to those employed for the reference condition.4.2.1.Effect of foil pitchModels of the storage are run with the different foil pitches given in Table2to account for the effect of foil pitch.In this study,half of the foil pitch is selected as 2.5mm,5.0mm,7.5mm and10mm,respectively.Figs. 10–12represent the effects of foil pitch on the liquid frac-tion of PCM(defined as the ratio of remaining liquid area to the total area),the total heatflux and the time of com-plete discharge,respectively.As can be seen,the bigger the foil pitch,the slower is the decrease in the liquid fraction, Fig.10.The heatflux extracted from the storage is maxi-mal and decreases sharply at the beginning,and then,the rate of decrease is slower with the increase of time for all the different foil pitches.However,the heatflux is higher and discharges more rapidly with the decrease of foil pitch,so the storage with larger foil pitch requires a longer time to discharge the total energy compared with that of the storage with smaller foil pitch,Fig.11.Fig.12shows that the time of complete discharge changes with foil pitch in a nearly linear relation,which may be that the heat transfer area is proportional to the foil pitch.For the case of a tube radius of6mm,foil thickness of1mm,wall temperature of 200°C(473K)and distance between steam tubes of 112mm,the equation relating the foil pitch to the time of complete discharge,t c,can be written in the formt c¼445:3wÀ410:2:ð7Þ4.2.2.Effect of distance between tubesFigs.13and14describe the liquid fraction and dis-charge heatflux as functions of time,respectively,when the distance between tubes(2r f)changes from60to 160mm,the curves are displayed for r f=30mm,46mm, 56mm,70mm and80mm.It is found from Fig.13that decreasing r f results in a decrease of liquid fraction,and Fig.14shows that the total discharged heatflux is almost the same at the beginning of solidification for different r f, but quickly the discharge rate of heatflux becomes bigger for the storage with smaller r f so the time of complete dis-charge is shorter,as observed from Fig.15.The variation of the time of complete discharge as a function of r f can be given by924 C.Guo,W.Zhang/Energy Conversion and Management49(2008)919–927t c¼0:6081Âr1:9859f:ð8Þ4.2.3.Effect of foil thicknessThe effect of foil thickness on the discharge behavior has been investigated for four types of the HTLHTES with foil thicknesses of0.5mm,1mm,2mm,and4mm,respec-tively.Figs.16and17present the results of the liquid frac-tion as a function of time and the time of complete discharge,respectively.As can be seen,the speed of dis-charge can be increased with a corresponding increase in foil thickness.However,when the foil thickness is larger than2mm,the effect of foil thickness on the time of com-plete discharge is not significant.The equation showing the influence of foil thickness,2v,on the time of complete dis-charge can be given byt c¼1717:9Âð2vÞÀ0:7239:ð9Þ4.2.4.Effect of tube radiusA proper selection of a parameter,like tube radius,is essential for economic optimization of the HTLHTES. Fig.18shows the influence of the tube radius r i on the liquid fraction of the PCM,assuming the volume of the storage medium is kept constant by adjusting the distance between the tubes.The liquid fraction decreases with increasing radius,and the bigger radius leads to a quicker discharge process due to the increased heat transfer area, as indicated in Fig.19.However,when the radius is larger than25mm,the performance of the storage is only slightly influenced by the radius.So,smaller tubes are more eco-nomic regarding material costs for the tube when the amount of steel needed for the tubes is assumed toC.Guo,W.Zhang/Energy Conversion and Management49(2008)919–927925increases proportional to the tube radius.The variation of the time of complete discharge with the range of tube radius can be predicted by the equation,t c ¼2533Âðr i ÞÀ0:2155:ð10Þ4.2.5.Effect of tube wall temperatureThe influences of varying the tube wall temperature on the liquid fraction and heat flux have been investigated by changing the wall temperature from 463–483K,and the results for the liquid fraction and the time of complete discharge,respectively,are illustrated in Figs.20and 21.Analysis reveals that the lower is the wall temperature,the more rapid is the decrease of the liquid fraction,and the shorter is the total discharge time.This is explicitly clear from Fig.21on the total discharge time,and the rela-tionship between the wall temperature and the time of com-plete discharge can be written ast c ¼2Â10À7Âe 0:0489T w :ð11Þ4.2.6.Effect of thermal conductivity of PCMComposite PCMs with high thermal conductivity using the KNO 3–NaNO 3eutectic and fins are being developed [25].Here,various values of the thermal conductivity k pcm ,varying from 0.5W/(m K)to 10W/(m K)are considered to see if it’s worthwhile to develop PCMs with higher ther-mal conductivity for HTLHTES.The heat flux discharge from the storage for different thermal conductivities is given in Fig.22,illustrating that the initially extracted heatfrom the storage increases with thermal conductivity.The increase in thermal conductivity results in enhancing the discharge process because of the resulting low thermal resistance.However,as can be observed in Fig.23on the time of complete discharge,after k pcm reaches 5W/(m K),any further increase in thermal conductivity is not very significant.The influence of thermal conductivity on the time of complete discharge can be written in the form t c ¼À283:84Âln ðk pcm Þþ1538:6:ð12Þ926 C.Guo,W.Zhang /Energy Conversion and Management 49(2008)919–9275.ConclusionsA new type of heat transfer enhancement in the HTLH-TES by using aluminium foils is put forward and studied numerically using the Fluent6.2software.The comparison between the storage with foils and without foils is based on the same tube diameter and PCM.The study shows the discharging process is significantly accelerated by adding aluminium foils,so aluminium foils are shown to be an effi-cient way of enhancing heat transfer in the HTLHTES. 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