Effect of water inlet velocity on thermal stratification in a mantled hot water storage tank

Thermal stratification in a mantled hot water storage tank is analysed numerically for different water inlet velocities. The aim is to obtain higher thermal stratification and supply hot water for usage as long as possible. Twelve different water inlet velocities to the hot water storage tank are considered. The numerical method is validated by comparing its results against experimental and numerical results from the literature. It turned out that the results obtained from the numerical analysis have shown very good agreements with the results from previous works. As a result, the water temperature in the tank increases with the increase of the water inlet velocities to the mantle but this increment is not proportional. After a period of operation of 7.2 h, which corresponds to the average sunshine duration in Turkey, temperature increments of 6.5 and 35 K have been estimated for the hot water inlet velocities of 0.01 and 0.3 m s^?1, respectively, at a radial distance of 0.1 m and a height of 1 m inside the storage tank. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytical and experimental investigation of thermal stratification in storage tanks

An analytical and experimental investigation of transient turbulent two-dimensional charging and discharging of a sensible heat storage tank has been conducted. Parametric studies showed that the turbulent mixing factor due to hydrodynamic disturbances at the inlet ports is the most significant item in the performance of thermal stratification storage tanks. Furthermore, the effect of the aspect ratio and convection at the walls in promoting stratification have been studied. Comparison with experimental data showed the capability of the present analytic approach to accommodate, with a satisfactory degree of accuracy, such problems.     

Temperature stratification from thermal diodes in solar hot water storage tank

In this brief note, we have experimentally measured the temperature stratification in a solar hot water storage tank resulting from a simulated solar heating load. Various modifications using a double chimney device that acts as a thermal diode were examined with the intent of maximizing temperature stratification. The greatest stratification was seen with a unique thermal diode arrangement named the express-elevator design, so-called for the direct hot water path from the bottom third of the tank to the top third.     

Effect of stratification on energy and exergy capacities in thermal storage systems

The increase in exergy storage capacity that is attained in thermal storages through stratification is assessed. A design‐oriented temperature‐distribution model for vertically stratified thermal storages that facilitates the evaluation of storage energy and exergy contents is utilized. The paper is directed towards demonstrating the thermodynamic benefits achieved through stratification, and increasing the utilization of exergy‐based performance measures for stratified thermal storages. A wide range of realistic storage‐fluid temperature profiles is considered, and for each the relative increase in exergy content of the stratified storage compared to the same storage when it is fully mixed is evaluated. The results indicate that, for all temperature profiles considered, the exergy storage capacity of a thermal storage increases when it is stratified, and increases as the degree of stratification, as represented through greater and sharper spatial temperature variations, increases. Furthermore, the percentage increase in exergy capacity is greatest for storages at temperatures near to the environment temperature, and decreases as the mean storage temperature diverges from the environment temperature (to either higher or lower temperatures). It is concluded that (i) the use of stratification in thermal storage designs should be considered as it increases the exergy storage capacity of a thermal storage and (ii) exergy analysis should be applied in the analysis and comparison of stratified thermal storage systems. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhanced thermal stratification in a liquid storage tank with a porous manifold

Experiments were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of a porous manifold in the formation and maintenance of thermal stratification in a liquid storage tank. A thermal storage tank with a capacity of 315 L and a height-to-radius ratio of 4 was used for the experiment. The porous manifold used was made from rolling up a nylon screen into the shape of a tube. Stratification was observed at a Richardson number as low as 0.615. Flow visualization was also performed to confirm the effectiveness of the porous manifold in the promotion and maintenance of stable thermal stratification. From the results of flow visualization, one can conclude that a porous manifold is able to reduce the shear-induced mixing between fluids of different temperature, and thus is able to promote and maintain a stable stratification.     

Domestic hot water storage: Balancing thermal and sanitary performance

Thermal stratification within hot water tanks maximises the availability of stored energy and facilitates optimal use of both conventional and renewable energy sources. However, stratified tanks are also associated with the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria, such as Legionella, due to the hospitable temperatures that arise during operation. Sanitary measures, aimed at homogenising the temperature distribution throughout the tank, have been proposed; such measures reduce the effective energy storage capability that is otherwise available. Here we quantify the conflict that arises between thermodynamic performance and bacterial sterilisation within 10 real world systems. Whilst perfect stratification enhances the recovery of hot water and reduces heat losses, water samples revealed significant bacterial growth attributable to stratification (P<0.01). Temperature measurements indicated that users were exposed to potentially unsanitary water as a result. De-stratifying a system to sterilise bacteria led to a 19% reduction in effective hot water storage capability. Increasing the tank size to compensate for this loss would lead to an 11% increase in energy consumed through standing heat losses. Policymakers, seeking to utilise hot water tanks as demand response assets, should consider monitoring and control systems that prevent exposures to unsanitary hot water.     

水蓄冷系统中蓄水槽设计需注意的几个问题

针对水蓄冷系统工程蓄水槽的设计中出现的一些常见问题进行了描述和分析,并提出了相应的解决方法,其结果对水蓄冷空调系统的设计具有一定的参考价值。     

Thermal stratification in small solar domestic storage tanks caused by draw-offs

Storage tanks with different cold water inlet devices for small Solar Domestic Hot Water (SDHW) systems are compared. The objective of the investigation is to reveal the impact of the cold water inlet device on the thermal stratification in two marketed tanks and to evaluate the possible enhancement in the annual system performance of small solar heating systems. Two different marketed inlet designs are compared, one connected to a small curved plate placed above the inlet tube, the other one connected to a much larger flat plate. The cold domestic water enters the stores in vertical direction from the bottom of the tanks. Temperature measurements were carried out for different operating conditions. It was shown that the thermal stratification inside the two tanks depends differently on the flow rate, the draw-off volume, as well as the initial temperature in the storage tank. To carry out system simulations, a multi-node storage model was used and expanded by an additional input variable to model the mixing behaviour depending on the operating conditions. The inlet device with a comparatively large plate compared to the less favourable design results in an increase of the solar fraction of about 1–3%-points in annual system simulations with a solar fraction of about 60% and fairly large domestic hot water flow rates. This corresponds to a reduction of the auxiliary energy supply of the solar heating system of about 3–7% (58–155 MJ/year) for the investigated solar domestic hot water system.     

Design of solar thermal systems utilizing pressurized hot water storage for industrial applications

A large number of industrial processes demand thermal energy in the temperature range of 80–240 °C. In this temperature range, solar thermal systems have a great scope of application. However, the challenge lies in the integration of a periodic, dilute and variable solar input into a wide variety of industrial processes. Issues in the integration are selection of collectors, working fluid and sizing of components. Application specific configurations are required to be adopted and designed. Analysis presented in this paper lays an emphasis on the component sizing. The same is done by developing a design procedure for a specific configuration. The specific configuration consists of concentrating collectors, pressurized hot water storage and a load heat exchanger. The design procedure follows a methodology called design space approach. In the design space approach a mathematical model is built for generation of the design space. In the generation of the design space, design variables of concern are collector area, storage volume, solar fraction, storage mass flow rate and heat exchanger size. Design space comprises of constant solar fraction curves traced on a collector area versus storage volume diagram. Results of the design variables study demonstrate that a higher maximum storage mass flow rates and a larger heat exchanger size are desired while limiting storage temperature should be as low as possible. An economic optimization is carried out to design the overall system. In economic optimization, total annualized cost of the overall system has been minimized. The proposed methodology is demonstrated through an illustrative example. It has been shown that 23% reduction in the total system cost may be achieved as compared to the existing design. The proposed design tool offers flexibility to the designer in choosing a system configuration on the basis of desired performance and economy.     

Numerical simulation of three-dimensional flow dynamics in a hot water storage tank

A hot water storage device is one of the most common household appliances yet it is also one of the biggest sources of energy consumption. With natural resources fading, it is imperative that typical high-energy users such as hot water systems are made as energy efficient as possible. Research has shown that the thermal performance of a hot water system can be increased by maximising the level of thermal stratification within the storage tank, which could lead to huge energy saving. To analyse the effects of tank geometry and operating conditions on the thermal stratification within a storage tank, seven three-dimensional models have been numerically simulated by using the computational fluid dynamics program Fluent with realistic boundary and initial conditions applied. The level of thermal stratification in each model has been quantified using exergy analyses. The results show that increasing the tanks height/diameter aspect ratio, decreasing inlet/outlet flow rates and moving the inlet/outlet to the outer extremities of the tank all result in increasing levels of thermal stratification.     

A numerical study for the prediction of turbulent mixing factor in thermal storage tanks

The transient behavior of thermal stratification in storage systems were investigated numerically. An efficient computer code based on Chapeau-Galerkin integral formulation is developed. The validation of the present scheme is verified against published experimental and finite difference results. The predictions are adequately simulate the published data. The present results showed that the turbulent mixing (or eddy conductivity) factor caused by hydrodynamic disturbances at the inlet and outlet ports of storage tank plays an important role in the performance of thermal stratification storage tanks. The eddy conductivity factor is included in the model to yield good agreement with experimental data. Further, the variation of this factor is expressed in a decreasing exponential function in terms of Reynolds and Richardson numbers. The effect of nodal grid size on the computed results is also investigated. It is found to have negligible effect on the temperature profiles at moderate grid size.     

Performance enhancement of an integrated collector storage hot water system

Integrated collector storage (ICS) systems offer a solution to reduce the height of the conventional flat-plate thermosiphon type collectors. The initial system developed had an aperture area of 1.77 m², a receiver diameter of 200 mm, a concentration ratio of 1.47 and total water storage volume of 65 litres. The main disadvantage of the ICS systems comes from their design, i.e., because the collector absorber is also the storage cylinder it is not possible to insulate it properly and therefore there are significant losses during the night. The main cause of these losses is the convection currents created during the night, circulating around the top glass cover. Another disadvantage of the system is its draw-off characteristics. Because the water cylinder/absorber is horizontal there is very little stratification of the water in the cylinder. It is suggested that a primary 110 mm diameter cylinder is introduced at the space between the main cylinder and the glass. The cold water is introduced directly to the primary cylinder, which feeds the main cylinder. With this modification the convection currents are drastically reduced due to the obstruction created by the primary vessel, thus reducing the night thermal losses. Also as the cold water is introduced first to the primary cylinder there is no direct mixing of the two streams thus greatly improving the system draw-off characteristics. This modification creates an 8% increase in the total cost of the system, which is reasonable, if the above benefits are considered     

Experimental study of temperature stratification in an integrated collector–storage solar water heater with two horizontal tanks

The effect of tank-interconnection geometry on temperature stratification in an integrated collector–storage solar water (ICSSW) heater with two horizontal cylindrical tanks has been studied. The tanks were parallel to each other, and separated horizontally and vertically, with the lower tank fitted directly below a glass cover, and half of the upper tank insulated. In addition, a truncated parabolic concentrator was fitted below the tanks, with its focal line along the axis of the upper tank. The heater was tested outdoors with the two tanks connected in parallel (P), and S1- and S2-series configurations, with and without hot water draw-off. Water temperature was monitored during solar collection and hot water draw-offs. For the heat charging process, it was found that only the lower tank exhibited temperature stratification in the P- and S1-tank modes of operation. There was satisfactory temperature stratification in both tanks in the S2-tank configuration. For the hot water draining process, the P-tank configuration exhibited some degree of stratification in both tanks. A significant loss of stratification was observed in the lower tank, with the upper tank exhibiting practical stratification, when the system was operated in the S1-tank mode. The S2-tank interconnection maintained a satisfactory degree of temperature stratification in both tanks. So, the S2-tank mode of operation was most effective in promoting practical temperature stratification in both tanks during solar collection and hot water draw-offs. Other results are presented and discussed in this paper.     

Diffuser design influence on the performance of solar thermal storage tanks

The effect of the inlet and outlet diffuser design on the performance of thermal stratification in a vertical water tank is investigated experimentally. Two sets of diffusers are used in the experiments, which are conducted with a moving thermocline (both up and down) for different flow rates. The results indicate that the preservation of the initial thermocline is excellent when using a settling mesh. It is also shown that the extraction efficiency of the tank is higher at low flow rates during charging, whereas it is lower at low flow rates during discharging.     

The effect of diffuser configuration on thermal stratification in a rectangular storage tank

This study is to systematically analyze the effect of various kinds of design factors on the stratification performance of a rectangular storage tank. Special interest is focused on the diffuser configuration, which crucially impacts the performance of a storage tank. Herein, a new diffuser shape is proposed, which exemplifies improved performance. Three-dimensional unsteady numerical experiments are conducted for four design parameters of a stratified thermal storage tank: Three design parameters with three levels (i.e., the Reynolds number=400, 800, and 1200; the Froude number=0.5, 1.0, and 2.0; and the area ratio of the diffuser to tank cross-section=0.0327, 0.0582, and 0.131) and one design parameter having two levels (i.e., diffuser type=radial plate type and radial adjusted plate type). Orthogonal array L₁₈(2×3⁷) is adopted for the analysis of variance. The result gives quantitative estimation of the various design parameters affecting the performance and helps to determine the main factors for the optimum design of a stratified thermal storage tank. In the range of parameters considered, the Reynolds number is found to be the most dominant parameter. Moreover, the diffuser shape plays a significant role on the performance of a stratified thermal storage tank.     

Neural network modelling of thermal stratification in a solar DHW storage

In this study an artificial neural network (ANN) model is introduced for modelling the layer temperatures in a storage tank of a solar thermal system. The model is based on the measured data of a domestic hot water system. The temperatures distribution in the storage tank divided in 8 equal parts in vertical direction were calculated every 5 min using the average 5 min data of solar radiation, ambient temperature, mass flow rate of collector loop, load and the temperature of the layers in previous time steps. The introduced ANN model consists of two parts describing the load periods and the periods between the loads. The identified model gives acceptable results inside the training interval as the average deviation was 0.22 °C during the training and 0.24 °C during the validation.     

Experimental study of porosity and effective thermal conductivity in packed bed of nano-structured FeTi for usage in hydrogen storage tanks

The porosity and effective thermal conductivity, which were measured simultaneously, changed owing to expansion during hydrogen absorption and contraction during hydrogen desorption. The metal hydride used in the experiment was a newly developed nano-structured FeTi (n-FeTi) by mechanical alloying. The porosity was measured by directly observing the changes in the volume of a metal hydride packed bed under free expansion. In the authors' previous study of LaNi₅, the volume of the packed bed gradually increased, whereas the total volume of the n-FeTi packed bed decreased with increase in the cycles of expansion and contraction. The effective thermal conductivity measurements of the metal hydride packed bed were carried out using a cylindrical device with heating from a central heater. The results showed that the effective thermal conductivity of n-FeTi changes from 0.4 to 1.1 W/mK with rise in reacted fraction and decrease in porosity.     

太阳能热发电用储热混凝土制备的研究

研究了以铝酸盐水泥为胶凝剂,以具有较大比热容的焦宝石和铝矾土等作为集料,添加高导热性的碳化硅和钢纤维,并选用性能优异的复合高效减水剂,制备可用于聚光式太阳能热发电的新型混凝土储热材料。     

Finite time thermal analysis of ground integrated‐collector‐storage solar water heater with transparent insulation cover

A transparent honeycomb insulated ground integrated‐collector‐storage system has been investigated for the engineering design and solar thermal performance. The system consists of a network of pipes embedded in a concrete slab whose surface is blackened and covered with transparent insulation materials (TIM) and the bottom is insulated by the ground. Heat may be retrieved by the flow of fluid through the pipe. A simulation model has been developed; it involves the solution of the two‐dimensional transient heat conduction equation using an explicit finite‐difference scheme. Computational results have been used to determine the effect of such governing parameters as depth as well as pitch of the pipe network and collector material on the thermal performance of the system. The pipe network depth of 10 cm and the TIM cover made of 5 cm compounded honeycomb seem suitable for the proposed system. Solar gain (solar collection efficiency of 30–50% corresponding to collection temperature of 40–60°C) and the diurnal heat storage characteristics of the system are found to be of the right order of magnitude for solar water heating applications. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of storage tanks on solar-powered absorption chiller cooling system performance

Thermal storage, low power tariff at night, and low nocturnal temperature can be used in synergy to reduce the cooling costs of the solar-powered absorption chiller cooling systems. This study aims to reduce the required cooling capacity of an absorption chiller (ACH) powered by a solar parabolic trough collector (PTC) and a backup fuel boiler by integrating thermal storage tanks. The thermal performance of the system is simulated for a building that is cooled for 14 h/day. The system uses 1000 m² PTC with 1020 kW ACH. Chilled water storage (CHWS) and cooling water storage (CWS) effects on the system performance for different operation hours per day of the ACH under Izmir (Turkey) and Phoenix (USA) weather conditions are analyzed. When the ACH operates 14 h/day as the load for both systems and both locations, the variations of the solar collector efficiency and the cooling load to heat input ratio remain less than 4% after the modifications. From the addition of CHWS to the reference system, a parametric study consisting of changing the ACH operation hours per day shows that the required cooling capacity of the ACH can be reduced to 34%. The capacity factor of the ACH is improved from its reference value of 41% up to 96%.