Solar thermal energy storage using latent heat : discharging energy from phase change material

Authors : Nordine KERROUMİ

Pages : 37-45

View : 14 | Download : 5

Publication Date : 2017-09-28

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The amount of solar thermal energy on the earth is not constant; it depends on weather conditions and location. To resolve the mismatch between energy supply and energy demand in solar thermal systems, the useful solutions is to store this solar thermal energy using phase change materials insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(latent heat); named PCM. In this paper, we studied numerically the discharging and charged energy from and to PCM. To improve the conjugate heat transfer between the heat transfer fluid insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(water); and the PCM at liquid state, we simulate the influence of the addition of fins to our storage unit with various configurations including online and staggered fins. Then we studied the effect of the inlet fluid flow and the fluid inlet temperature on the total PCM freezing time and the effect of the natural convection in our storage unit. Furthermore, we valid an experimental work. In addition, we used the computational fluid dynamic ansysFluent 15 based on enthalpy formulation to solve the formulation, where we develop three users define to describe the viscosity, density and the thermal conductivity of the PCM.  
Keywords : PCM, solar thermal energy, freezing time, AnsysFluent, fins