Energy Storage Science and Technology ›› 2022, Vol. 11 ›› Issue (11): 3558-3565.doi: 10.19799/j.cnki.2095-4239.2022.0248

• Energy Storage System and Engineering • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Three-dimensional numerical study of discharging characteristics of a fin-enhanced cascaded latent heat storage system

Yongliang SHEN(), Pengwei ZHANG, Shuli LIU()   

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
  • Received:2022-05-09 Revised:2022-05-18 Online:2022-11-05 Published:2022-11-09
  • Contact: Shuli LIU E-mail:shenyl0104@163.com;shuli.liu@bit.edu.cn

Abstract:

Cascaded latent heat storage technology has been proven as an effective method for solving the poor thermal conductivity of phase change materials (PCMs). Previous numerical studies on cascaded latent heat storage systems were based on one-or two-dimensional mathematical models, and most of them focused on the charging process. In this paper, a fin-enhanced three-tube cascaded latent heat storage system is proposed, and a three-dimensional numerical model is established to study the thermal performance of PCMs at each stage of the discharging process and to explore the effect of the inlet velocity of the heat transfer fluid and initial temperature of PCMs on system thermal performance. The results show that during the discharging process, the phase change of PCMs at each stage do not occur simultaneously, and the PCMs are mainly affected by the phase change temperature and latent heat. The increase of the inlet velocity of the heat transfer fluid increases the discharging rate of the PCMs. With a further increase of the inlet velocity, the enhancement effect of the discharging rate is weakened. The initial temperature of the PCMs has a certain influence on the sensible heat discharging process but limitedly affects the latent heat discharging stage.

Key words: cascaded latent heat storage, fins, heat storage unit, numerical simulation

CLC Number: