首页|Experimental comparative analysis of finned-tube PCM-heat exchangers’ performance
Experimental comparative analysis of finned-tube PCM-heat exchangers’ performance
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NSTL
Elsevier
The use of phase change materials (PCMs) in energetic systems today is in large parts restricted by dynamic issues， or what could be termed the “rate problem”; i。e。， how long will it take (heat transfer rate) to store， or recover， a given amount of thermal energy in a PCM-based thermal energy storage system (TES) for a specific application? There is no theory that can easily answer this question for a given PCM-TES。 Therefore， an important long-term objective in the latent heat thermal energy storage community is to determine heat exchanger design rules for PCM-TES。 To this end， it is imperative to study a large variety of heat exchange configurations: heat exchanger size and shape， tank size and shape， use of fins or not， various PCMs， charging and discharging conditions， etc。 This paper presents a series of new controlled experimental characterizations of a specific PCM-heat exchanger (HX): a vertical finned tube-and-shell system designed in a way that the number of finned-tubes used in the HX can be varied。 Experimental characterization was performed for systems having 4， 8 and 12 finned-tubes。 The inlet heat transfer fluid (HTF) temperature， the initial system temperature， and the HTF flow rate were also varied consistently for each geometrical arrangement to cover a wide range of operating conditions。 Results are first presented in terms of power curves， followed by two comparative metrics: mean power and normalized power。 Determining and applying these two comparative metrics is the first step forward in the search for PCM-HX design theory and rules。 These two possible metrics， the mean and normalized power， applied to this modular finned tube-and-shell PCM-TES shed light on their merit as comparative metrics as well as the impact of PCM-TES operating conditions。
NSTL
Elsevier
