Search Results (6)

Moving the load peak to consume electrical power is valuable in air conditioning systems. Consequently, the current study presents an experimental thermal investigation of an ice storage system. For this purpose, a twin concentric helical coil (TCHC) is utilized. The coil is submerged in distilled water in an insulated tank. The main aim is to explore the effect of geometrical/operating conditions for the TCHC on percentage energy stored/regained, solidified/melted mass fraction, and average charging/discharging rate. The main parameters are twin coil pitch and tube diameter while keeping the cold heat transfer fluid (HTF) inlet conditions at −12 °C and 10 L/min. The results disclosed that the discharge time increases by about 79% for total energy gained as the coil pitch rises from 30 to 50 mm at a smaller tube diameter of 9.52 mm. At the same time, the discharge time is doubled when the tube diameter is 15.88 mm. Furthermore, the complete solidification needs half the time (time reduced to 50%) to be achieved as the tube diameter increases from 9.52 mm to 15.88 mm (68% increases in diameter) for lower pitch (P = 30 mm). Full article

Due to the high enthalpy of fusion in water, ice storage systems are known as one of the best cold thermal energy storage systems. The phase change material used in these systems is water, thus it is inexpensive, accessible, and completely eco-friendly. However, despite the numerous advantages of these systems, the phase change process in them is time-consuming and this leads to difficulties in their practical application. To solve this problem, the addition of nanomaterials can be helpful. This study aims to investigate the compound heat transfer enhancement of a cylindrical-shaped unit equipped with double helically coiled coolant tubes using connecting plates and nano additives as heat transfer augmentation methods. Complex three-dimensional numerical simulations are carried out here to assess the best heat exchanger material as well as the impact of various nanoparticle types, including alumina, copper oxide, and titania, and their concentrations in the PCM side of the ice storage unit. The influence of these parameters is discussed on the charging rate and the temperature evolution factor in these systems. The results suggest that using nano additives, as well as the connecting plates, together is a promising way to enhance the solidification rate by up to 29.9%. Full article

There is a growing interest in sustainable energy sources for energy demand growth of power industries. To align the demand and the consumption of electrical energy, thermal energy storage appears as an efficient method. In the summer days, by using a cold storage system like ice storage, peaks of the energy usage shift to low-load hours of midnights. Here, we investigate the charging process (namely solidification) numerically in an ice-on-coil thermal energy storage configuration, where ice is formed around the coil or tube to store the chilled energy. The considered ice storage system is a shell and tube configuration, with three kinds of tubes including a U-shaped tube, a coil tube with an inner return line, and a coil tube with an outer return line. Advanced 3D unsteady simulations are achieved to determine the effects of tube type and position of the ice storage (horizontal or vertical) on the solidification process. Results indicate that using a coil tube speeds up the ice formation, as compared with the simple U-shaped tube. The coil tube with an outer return line exhibits a better performance (more produced ice), as compared with the coil tube with an inner return line. After 16 h of solidification, the coil tube with the outer return line has about 1.057% and 1.32% lower liquid fraction in comparison with the coil tube with the inner return line and U-shaped tube, respectively, for both positions (vertical and horizontal). Full article

Heat dissipation of high-power lasers needs a cold storage and supply system to provide sufficient cooling power. A compact coil-plate heat exchange device has been proposed and applied in the phase-change cold storage system with ice as the cold-storage medium and glycol aqueous solution as the coolant. The heat exchanger consists of several stacked coil-plate units and each unit is constructed with a flat plate and serpentine coils welded on the plate. A simulation model on the cold achieving process of a coil-plate unit was built and verified by the corresponding experiment. The influences of the structural parameters (tube diameter, tube pitch, and plate spacing) of the unit and the inlet temperature and volume flow rate of the coolant on the heat exchange power density were analyzed to obtain the maximal cooling effect in a limited time period. It was found that the heat exchange power density is limited when the tube pitch and plate spacing are large, otherwise, the effective cooling time period is limited. A small plate spacing can make the power density decrease rapidly in the later stage. The inlet coolant temperature can significantly affect the heat exchange power density while the coolant volume flow rate in tube has a small effect on the power density when the coolant is in turbulent state. In a time period of 900 s, for a coil-plate heat exchanger with a plate size of 940 mm ×770 mm and a tube pitch of 78 mm, when the plate spacing is 20 mm, the average heat exchange power density is 5.1 kW/m² when the inlet temperature and volume flow rate of the coolant are 20 °C and 0.5 m³/h, respectively. The total cooling power of several stacked coil-plate units in the limited time period can match the high requirement of laser heat dissipation. Full article

Cold thermal energy storage, as a promising way of peak-shifting, can store energy by using cheap electricity during off-peak hours and regenerate electricity during peak times to reduce energy consumption. The most common form of cold storage air conditioning technology is ice on the coil energy storage system. Most of the previous studies so far about ice on coil cold storage system have been done experimentally. Numerical modeling appears as a valuable tool to first better understand the melting process then to improve the thermal performance of such systems by efficient design. Hence, this study aims to simulate the melting process of phase change materials in an internal melt ice-on-coil thermal storage system equipped with a coil tube. A three-dimensional numerical model is developed using ANSYS Fluent 18.2.0 to evaluate the dynamic characteristics of the melting process. The effects of operating parameters such as the inlet temperature and flowrate of the heat transfer fluid are investigated. Also, the effects of the coil geometrical parameters—including coil pitch, diameter, and height—are also considered. Results indicate that conduction is the dominant heat transfer mechanism at the initial stage of the melting process. Increasing either the inlet temperature or the flowrate shortens the melting time. It is also shown that the coil diameter shows the most pronounced effect on the melting rate compared to the other investigated geometrical parameters. Full article

In this study, a coil heat exchanger with an ice storage system is analyzed by theoretical analysis, numerical analysis, and experimental analysis. The dynamic characteristics of ice thickness variation is studied by means of unstable heat conduction theory in cylindrical coordinates, and the change rule of the ice layer thickness is obtained. The computational fluid dynamics method is employed to simulate the flow field and ice melting process of the coil heat exchanger. The effect of the agitator height on the flow characteristics and heat transfer characteristics is investigated. The numerical results show that the turbulence intensity of the fluid near the wall of the heat exchanger is the largest with an agitator height of 80 mm. Furthermore, the process of ice melting is analyzed. The ice on the outer side of the evaporator tube close to the container wall melts faster than the inner side and this agrees well with the experimental result. The experimental study on the process of the operational period and deicing of the coil heat exchanger is conducted and the temperature variation curves are obtained by the arrangement of thermocouples. It is found that the temperature of the evaporating tube increases with increasing height in the process of ice storage. Full article