Experimental investigations of a latent heat energy storage unit using finned tubes

Kabbara, Moe; Groulx, Dominic; Joseph, Alain

doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2015.12.080

Cited by 61 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…[9][10][11][12] Methods for LHS performance enhancement include extending heat transfer surface, [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] improving process uniformity 7,20 and enhancing PCM conductivity. [9][10][11][12] Methods for LHS performance enhancement include extending heat transfer surface, [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] improving process uniformity 7,20 and enhancing PCM conductivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to improve the performance of latent heat storage systems, researchers have conducted a large number of studies. [9][10][11][12] Methods for LHS performance enhancement include extending heat transfer surface, [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] improving process uniformity 7,20 and enhancing PCM conductivity. [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] Lohrasbi et al 13 and Kabbara et al 14 used axially fins and radially fins, respectively, to extend the heat transfer surface area.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Conduction paths of backbones for thermal enhancement of nanocomposite phase change materials

Zhou

Zhao

et al. 2019

Int J Energy Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thermal energy storage (TES) based on phase change materials (PCMs) has become a research hot spot due to its high energy storage density and maintained operating temperature during the phase change. However, as PCM has a poor thermal conductivity that can be as low as 0.2~0.5 W/m·K, the charging/discharging processes of PCM modules are significantly restrained, which severely affects the application of the TES technology in industrial sectors. This study concerns the improvement of the effective thermal conductivity of composite PCM formed by adding nanoparticles with high thermal conductivity into different PCMs. A theoretical model is established to reveal the intrinsic mechanism for the promotion of thermal conductivity of composite PCM consisting of nanoparticles. The results show that aggregation and interfacial thermal resistance are the main reasons for the change of the thermal conductivity. By forming effective conduction paths composed of backbones in the composite PCM, the average thermal conductivity can be improved significantly, which can be as high as 10~50 W/m·K with a wide range of volume fraction of the additives.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conduction paths of backbones for thermal enhancement of nanocomposite phase change materials

Zhou

Zhao

et al. 2019

Int J Energy Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The theoretical amount of total energy of which a specified mass of PCM can store has been established and commonly used in previous studies [4,7,32,33,34]; it will be presented in Chapter 3. The rate at which this energy is stored is not as simple to determine.…”

Section: The Rate Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The heat transfer rate is dependent on multiple factors such as thermal conductivity of the PCM, geometry of the encapsulation, the temperature of the HTF, the flow rate of the HTF and the initial temperature of the PCM, as well as the nature and strength of the various heat transfer processes in the PCM (conduction, natural convection), etc. [7,14,16,31,33,34,35]. Thus, various PCM TES applications will charge and discharge at different rates necessitating the need for characterizing the heat transfer rates of each system individually since no simple heat exchanger design rule currently exist for PCM heat exchanger.…”

Section: The Rate Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fortunately, having so many factors influencing heat transfer provides multiple opportunities to manipulate the heat transfer rate in order to overcome 'the rate problem'. Many solutions focus on the geometry of the encapsulations such as adding fins [16,33] and having thinner encapsulation decreasing thermal resistance of the wall [31,36,37] for heat transfer. Another popular solution is to vary the inlet temperature and flow rate of the HTF until desired charging times are achieved [31,33,37,38].…”

Section: The Rate Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Characterization of Heat Transfer Rates in an Air to Phase Change Material Thermal Storage Unit for Integration in Air Handling Units

Wert¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Space heating accounts for 55% of the total energy demand in the commercial sector in Canada. Improvement in energy efficiency and energy storage in this area can have a significant impact on total energy demand. Phase change materials (PCM) have been shown to be a viable medium for thermal energy storage having larger storage capacity per mass than conventional sensible heat storage materials. For this thesis, an air-loop was designed, constructed and instrumented to characterize the heat transfer rates and energy storage potential of a small scale PCM thermal energy storage (TES) unit. The air-loop was designed to provide the necessary inlet conditions to the PCM TES unit. The storage unit was custom made and housed multiple aluminum flat plates (450 mm x 300 mm x 10 mm) filled with PCM (RT44HC). The plates were aligned in two rows of 29. A gap of 11 mm existed between each plate to allow air (the heat transfer fluid (HTF)) to pass. Overall, three variables were studied for the characterization: the HTF flow rates, the initial temperature of the PCM and the HTF inlet temperature. An empirical model was created in TRNSYS with the values determined from the characterization of the PCM TES. This model with data from a real commercial building AHU was used to simulate a PCM TES integrated into an AHU using the integration method of strategic heating with the goal of reducing peak power during start-up. This was but one of multiple methods of PCM TES integration into an AHU. The simulation results were compared to the AHU without PCM TES to determine whether any energy improvements were achieved. It was determined that by adding the PCM TES the start-up peak power could be reduced by 35 kW.

show abstract

A Review on Thermal Properties Improvement of Phase Change Materials and Its Combination with Solar Thermal Energy Storage

Liu

Zhang

et al. 2021

Energy Tech

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article summarizes measures to enhance the solar phase change thermal energy storage (TES), starting from two key points in solar phase change TES research: solar phase change materials (PCM) and solar phase transition devices. First, different types of PCM and their advantages and disadvantages are introduced. To improve thermal performance, the research progress of different dimensional thermal conductivity additives, photothermal composite phase change materials (CPCM), and phase change microcapsules is reviewed. Then, the characteristics of commonly used solar phase transition TES devices and the research status of solar energy device improvement with fins and multistage phase transition TES are summarized for the past few years. It is hoped to provide methods and ideas for the design and research of solar phase change TES systems, and to increase the overall heat transfer properties through the combination of multiple optimization methods. Finally, the future direction and research focus of solar phase change TES technology are put forward.

show abstract

Experimental investigations of a latent heat energy storage unit using finned tubes

Cited by 61 publications

References 19 publications

Conduction paths of backbones for thermal enhancement of nanocomposite phase change materials

Conduction paths of backbones for thermal enhancement of nanocomposite phase change materials

Characterization of Heat Transfer Rates in an Air to Phase Change Material Thermal Storage Unit for Integration in Air Handling Units

A Review on Thermal Properties Improvement of Phase Change Materials and Its Combination with Solar Thermal Energy Storage

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About