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PowerEnergy2015-49170
DESCRIPTION OF SYSTEM
The thermal storage tank chosen for this analysis was one
with dual heat exchangers and no flow into or out of the tank.
Therefore, the water which serves as a thermal storage medium
FIGURE 1. Schematic used to develop mathematical model of strati-
remains in the tank, where thermal energy is added by the hot
fied storage tank
stream and is removed from the tank by the cold stream (as
shown in Figure 1). The heat exchanger coils were assumed to
extend throughout the entire height of the tank, such that they
provide the maximum heat transfer area. The dual heat ex- fluids were considered incompressible and at a sufficiently high
changer configuration with no mass flow through the tank also pressure such that no change in phase occurs. Finally, the mix-
has the advantage of being completely sealed with flow only oc- ing between the stratified layers due to buoyancy was neglected.
curring through each of the heat exchangers. This leads to less Some of these assumptions would be tested later using a valida-
maintenance on the tank and eliminates the chance of leakage. tion model.
The model presented in this paper considers a 2200 L cylin- By applying the first law of thermodynamics, the energy bal-
drical storage tank with diameter of 1.25 m and a height of 2 ance equation for stored water in a generic node ”i” can be de-
m. The dimensions of the storage tank considered are consistent rived as follows:
with those provided by SolarBayer [13] . The heat exchangers
were similar to the ones used in experimental analysis by Logie
et al. [14] . Identical heat exchangers made of crude steel (enam-
dTi kAc (Ti 1 Ti ) kAc (Ti+1 Ti )
eled) were considered as both hot and cold heat exchangers, the mi c p = UAh (Th,i Ti ) + +
specifications of which are detailed in Table 1. Figure 1 shows dt Dx Dx
the schematic used to develop the one-dimensional mathematical +UAc (Tc,i Ti )
model of the aforementioned system. (1)
MATHEMATICAL MODELING For the heat transfer fluid (i.e. water inside the heat exchang-
The model equations for the storage tank was derived by ers), the energy equations can be expressed as:
performing an energy balance of the given system. Several as-
sumptions were made in order to simplify the model. The tank
was assumed to be adiabatic over the time period of interest, with dTh,i
no mass flow of stored water entering and leaving the tank. The mh,i c p,h = ṁh c p,h (Th,i 1 Th,i ) UAh (Th,i Ti ) (2)
dt
This is supplemented by Ito’s correlation [15]: µ[T = THX,i (t = 0)] + µ[T = Ti (t = 0)]
µf = (10)
2
0.25
f = 0.304ReD + 0.029d 0.5 (8)
Finally, the outer heat transfer coefficient is calculated using RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
the correlation for free convection, as suggested by Ali [16]: Figure 2 shows the temperature profile of stored water at
various axial locations in the storage tank (x = 0 corresponds to
water level). For the reference flow-rates, the stored water tem-
peratures reach a steady state after about 2 hours of operation.
NuL = 0.106RaL 0.335 (9) The difference between the top and the bottom node is 42.2 K,
Temperature (K)
360 360
340 340
FIGURE 2. Temperature profile of stored water at various vertical lo- FIGURE 4. Temperature profile of water at various locations at cold
cations heat exchanger
380
dT (k + kdest )Ac (Ti+1 Ti ) (k + kdest )Ac (Ti 1 Ti )
mi c p
Temperature (K)
= +
360 dt Dx Dx
Uloss As (T• Ti ) Â ṁout cTout + Â ṁin cTin +
340 +UAh (Th,i Ti ) +UAc (Tc,i Ti )
(11)
Th(x = 0.10 m)
320
Th(x = 1.10 m)
Th(x = 1.90 m) The validation model, which was used by Angrisani et al. [3]
300 has been validated with experimental results, the details of which
0 1 2 3 4 are available in other literature [3]. For the validation model, the
time (hours)
temperature-dependent thermo-physical properties were curve-
fit to algebraic functions. Consistent with the experimental work
FIGURE 3. Temperature profile of water at various locations at hot of Angrisani et al. [3] the de-stratification conductivity and the
heat exchanger heat loss coefficient were taken to be 0.285 (W /mK) and 1.37
W/m2 K .
Figure 5 shows that the difference in temperature of stored
which indicates that the tank is considerably stratified. Figures water predicted by the simplified model and that predicted by the
3 and 4 show the corresponding plots of temperature profiles of validation model is relatively higher for top node compared to
water inside the hot and cold heat exchangers respectively. The the bottom node. Figure 6 shows the temperature distributions
temperature of hot water inside the heat exchanger decreases, of stored water at steady-state as predicted by the two models. It
while that of cold water increases with their respective flow di- can be seen that for the given system, the simplified model can
rections. determine the stored water temperature profile fairly accurately
Figures 5 compares the temperature profiles at the top and and that the only significant deviation from the validation model
bottom nodes with those obtained using a validation model. The occurs at the top node, where the simplified model over-predicts
validation model accounted for the variation of thermo-physical the stored water temperature. This is because at the top node, the
properties (i.e. density, dynamic viscosity, thermal conductivity mass transfer due to buoyancy is likely to be maximum, and as
and specific heat capacity), as well as the effects of buoyancy- a result, buoyancy-driven mixing effect would be relatively more
induced mixing, thermal de-stratification and heat loss to the am- significant.
bient. The energy balance equation for stored water in the vali- Taking the corresponding temperature obtained using the
dation model, which is identical to the one used by Angrisani et validation model as base, the relative errors in stored water tem-
Temperature (K)
Temperature (K)
350
360 Presented Model
340
340 330
320
320 310
Top node
Bottom node 300
300 0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 time (hours)
time (hours)
econv = (13)
370 Est,n=100
Validation Model
372 370
Qc = 4
360
370
Temperature (K)
Qc = 6
350
368 Qc = 8
340
Q = 10
c
366 330
Qc = 15
320
364
310
362
0 50 100 300
Number of Nodes 0 1 2 3
time (hours)
3 0.6
Non−dimensional computational time
390
Relative Convergence error (%)
380
2 εconv 0.4
370
Temperature (K)
τ
360
1 0.2
350 Qc = 4
Qc = 6
340
Qc = 8
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 Qc = 10
330
Number of nodes Qc = 15
320
0 0.5 1
FIGURE 9. Relative convergence error and non-dimensional compu- x/H
tational time vs. number of nodes
360 Qh = 6 360
Temperature (K)
350 Qh = 4
350
340
330 340
320 330 Qh
Qc
310
320
300 5 10 15
0 1 2 3 4 Flow rate in heat exchanger (m3/s)
time (hours)
390 Plus, where it would be imperative for the model to run on a low
computational time.
380
370
Temperature (K)
REFERENCES
360
[1] Nakahara, N., Sagara, K., and Tsujimoto, M., 1989. “Water
350 thermal storage tank: Part 2-mixing model and storage es-
Qc = 4
timation for temperature-stratified tanks”. ASHRAE Trans-
Qc = 6
340
Qc = 8
actions, 95(2), May, pp. 371–394.
Qc = 10 [2] Cruickshank, C. A., 2009. “Evulation of a Stratified
330
Qc = 15 Multi-Tank Thermal Storage for Solar Heating Applica-
320 tions”. PhD thesis, Queen’s Unviersity, Kingston, Ontario,
0 0.5 1 Canada.
x/H
[3] Angrisani, G., Canelli, M., Roselli, C., and Sasso, M.,
2014. “Calibration and validation of a thermal energy stor-
FIGURE 13. Temperature distribution of stored water at steady-state age model: Influence on simulation results”. Applied Ther-
- effect of varying cold water flow rates mal Engineering, 67(2), March, pp. 190–200.
[4] Hasnain, S., 1998. “Review on sustainable thermal energy
storage technologies”. Energy Conversion and Manage-
lated cylindrical storage tank, the effects of buoyancy-induced ment, 39(2), pp. 1127–1138.
mixing and thermal de-stratification can be neglected without [5] Celador, A., Oriozola, M., and Sala, J., 2011. “Implica-
significant changes to the accuracy of the solution. For a 10- tions of the modelling of stratified hot water storage tanks
node tank, the presented model can predict differentials in stored in the simulation of chp plants”. Energy Conversion and
energy with 98% accuracy with respect to the validation model, Management, 52, March, pp. 3018–3026.
while taking about 35% of its computational time. [6] Schlueter, A., and Thesseling, F., 2009. “Building informa-
The simplified model presented can predict temperature pro- tion model based energy/exergy performance assessment
files with reduced problem complexity and computational time, in early design stages”. Automation in Construction, 18,
compared with other methods. It may be used as a screening pp. 153–163.
tool to quickly evaluate the response of a thermal storage tank [7] US D EPARTMENT OF E NERGY, 2013. EnergyPlus Docu-
used for heat recovery in a distributed power generation appli- mentation.
cation. This model can also be integrated as a module with a [8] Kleinbach, E., Beckman, W., and Klein, S., 1993. “Per-
more comprehensive energy modeling software, such as Energy- formance study of one dimensional models for stratified