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Experimental and numerical research of thermal stratification with a novel inlet in a dynamic hot water storage tank

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  • Wang, Zilong
  • Zhang, Hua
  • Dou, Binlin
  • Huang, Huajie
  • Wu, Weidong
  • Wang, Zhiyun

Abstract

Heat storage is an important task in the use of solar energy; in particular, the use of water as the thermal storage medium is one of key technologies in solar thermal energy utilization. With the purpose of improving the thermal stratification of a heat storage tank, a novel equalizer was designed in this paper. To investigate the influence factor of thermal stratification in hot water storage tank, numerical analyses based on the three-dimensional (3D) unsteady Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model were performed using the commercial software ANSYS. The initial and inlet temperatures were considered along with various flow rates. The performance parameters, such as the Richardson number, the MIX number and exergy, were involved in the evaluation. This study was further extended to explore the fill efficiency as the performance parameters of thermal stratification within a storage tank. The numerical model was validated with the experimental data; the results were determined to be in good agreement. The results demonstrate that with the growth of flow rate, the Richardson number decreases, fill efficiency and exergy increased first and later decreased, but the MIX number decreased first and later increased. When the flow rate was 3 L/min, the equalizer performs best, and the storage tank had a better thermal stratification. The RMS error increased first and subsequently decreases before increasing again with the growth of the flow rate. Furthermore, the MIX number reaches a minimum at the dimensionless time of 0.5 in the numerical results, whereas it is 0.4 in the experimental results. It was also observed that the contribution of the equalizer on the flow-suppressing of influent results in a decrease of mixing process between the hot and cold water, which could lead to improvement of the thermal stratification.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Zilong & Zhang, Hua & Dou, Binlin & Huang, Huajie & Wu, Weidong & Wang, Zhiyun, 2017. "Experimental and numerical research of thermal stratification with a novel inlet in a dynamic hot water storage tank," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 353-371.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:111:y:2017:i:c:p:353-371
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.04.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Baihong & Gao, Wenfeng & Zhang, Yougang & Ding, Xiang & Li, Qiong & Wang, Jinsong, 2023. "Effect of initial temperature of water in a solar hot water storage tank on the thermal stratification under the discharging mode," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 994-1004.
    2. Rendall, Joseph & Abu-Heiba, Ahmad & Gluesenkamp, Kyle & Nawaz, Kashif & Worek, William & Elatar, Ahmed, 2021. "Nondimensional convection numbers modeling thermally stratified storage tanks: Richardson's number and hot-water tanks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. Liang, Haobin & Liu, Liu & Zhong, Ziwen & Gan, Yixiang & Wu, Jian-Yong & Niu, Jianlei, 2022. "Towards idealized thermal stratification in a novel phase change emulsion storage tank," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    4. María Gasque & Federico Ibáñez & Pablo González-Altozano, 2021. "Minimum Number of Experimental Data for the Thermal Characterization of a Hot Water Storage Tank," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-16, August.
    5. Chang, Chun & Wu, Zhiyong & Navarro, Helena & Li, Chuan & Leng, Guanghui & Li, Xiaoxia & Yang, Ming & Wang, Zhifeng & Ding, Yulong, 2017. "Comparative study of the transient natural convection in an underground water pit thermal storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 1162-1173.
    6. Bai, Yakai & Wang, Zhifeng & Fan, Jianhua & Yang, Ming & Li, Xiaoxia & Chen, Longfei & Yuan, Guofeng & Yang, Junfeng, 2020. "Numerical and experimental study of an underground water pit for seasonal heat storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 487-508.
    7. Li, Qiong & Huang, Xiaoqiao & Tai, Yonghang & Gao, Wenfeng & Wenxian, L. & Liu, Wuming, 2021. "Thermal stratification in a solar hot water storage tank with mantle heat exchanger," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 1-11.
    8. Kicsiny, Richárd, 2018. "Black-box model for solar storage tanks based on multiple linear regression," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 857-865.
    9. Wang, Zilong & Zhu, Mengshuai & Zhang, Hua & Zhou, Ying & Sun, Xiangxin & Dou, Binlin & Wu, Weidong & Zhang, Guanhua & Jiang, Long, 2023. "Experimental and simulation study on the heat transfer mechanism and heat storage performance of copper metal foam composite paraffin wax during melting process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    10. Miguel A. Gómez & Sergio Chapela & Joaquín Collazo & José L. Míguez, 2019. "CFD Analysis of a Buffer Tank Redesigned with a Thermosyphon Concentrator Tube," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, June.
    11. De la Cruz-Loredo, Iván & Zinsmeister, Daniel & Licklederer, Thomas & Ugalde-Loo, Carlos E. & Morales, Daniel A. & Bastida, Héctor & Perić, Vedran S. & Saleem, Arslan, 2023. "Experimental validation of a hybrid 1-D multi-node model of a hot water thermal energy storage tank," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    12. Dzierwa, Piotr & Taler, Jan & Peret, Patryk & Taler, Dawid & Trojan, Marcin, 2022. "Transient CFD simulation of charging hot water tank," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).
    13. Agnieszka Malec & Tomasz Cholewa & Alicja Siuta-Olcha, 2021. "Influence of Cold Water Inlets and Obstacles on the Energy Efficiency of the Hot Water Production Process in a Hot Water Storage Tank," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-26, October.
    14. Piyatida Trinuruk & Papangkorn Jenyongsak & Somchai Wongwises, 2022. "Comparative Study of Inlet Structure and Obstacle Plate Designs Affecting the Temperature Stratification Characteristics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-25, March.
    15. Lihua Cao & Jingwen Yu & Xifeng Liu & Zhanzhou Wang, 2024. "Evaluation Method and Analysis on Performance of Diffuser in Heat Storage Tank," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-15, January.
    16. Lou, Wanruo & Xie, Baoshan & Aubril, Julien & Fan, Yilin & Luo, Lingai & Arrivé, Arnaud, 2023. "Optimized flow distributor for stabilized thermal stratification in a single-medium thermocline storage tank: A numerical and experimental study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PA).
    17. Jie Huang & Fei Xu & Zilong Wang & Hua Zhang, 2023. "An Experimental Investigation on the Performance of a Water Storage Tank with Sodium Acetate Trihydrate," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-14, January.
    18. Kurşun, Burak & Ökten, Korhan, 2018. "Effect of rectangular hot water tank position and aspect ratio on thermal stratification enhancement," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(PA), pages 639-646.
    19. Weichao Huang & Jiahao Li & Ding Liu, 2023. "Research on Unsteady Inverse Heat Conduction Based on Dynamic Matrix Control," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-17, May.
    20. Chandra, Yogender Pal & Matuska, Tomas, 2020. "Numerical prediction of the stratification performance in domestic hot water storage tanks," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 1165-1179.
    21. Kocijel, Lino & Mrzljak, Vedran & Glažar, Vladimir, 2020. "Numerical analysis of geometrical and process parameters influence on temperature stratification in a large volumetric heat storage tank," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).

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