Heat transfer in a fixed bed of particles for energy storage: a multi-scale numerical study

Author(s):  
M. Belot ◽  
T. Phan ◽  
F. Euzénat ◽  
J-L. Pierson ◽  
David Teixeira ◽  
...  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qasim A. Ranjha ◽  
Nasser Vahedi ◽  
Alparslan Oztekin

Thermal energy storage by reversible gas-solid reaction has been selected as a thermochemical energy storage system. Simulations are conducted to investigate the dehydration of Ca(OH)2 and the hydration of CaO for thermal energy storage and retrieval, respectively. The rectangular packed bed is heated indirectly by air used as a heat transfer fluid (HTF) while the steam is transferred through the upper side of the bed. Transient mass transport and heat transfer equations coupled with chemical kinetics equations for a two dimensional geometry have been solved using finite element method. Numerical results have been validated by comparing against results of previous measurements and simulations. The effect of geometrical and operational parameters including the material properties on overall storage and retrieval process has been investigated. The co-current and counter-current flow arrangements for steam and heat transfer fluid have been considered.


Author(s):  
Assaad Al Sahlani ◽  
Kelvin Randhir ◽  
Nesrin Ozalp ◽  
James Klausner

Abstract Concentrated solar thermochemical storage in the form of a zero-emission fuel is a promising option to produce long-duration energy storage. The production of solar fuel can occur within a cylindrical cavity chemical reactor that captures concentrated solar radiation from a solar field. A heat transfer model of a tubular plug-flow reactor is presented. Experimental data from a fixed bed tubular reactor are used for model comparison. The system consists of an externally heated tube with counter-current flowing gas and moving solid particles as the heated media. The proposed model simulates the dynamic behavior of temperature profiles of the tube wall, gas, and particles under various gas flow rates and residence times. The heat transfer between gas-wall, solid particle-wall, gas-solid particle, are numerically studied. The model is compared with experiments using a 4 kW furnace with a 150 mm heating zone surrounding a horizontal alumina tube (reactor) with 50.8 mm OD and a thickness of 3.175 mm. Solid fixed particles of magnesium manganese oxide (MgMn2O4) with the size of 1 mm are packed within the length of 250 mm at the center of the tube length. Simulation results are assessed with respect to fixed bed experimental data for four different gas flow rates, namely 5, 10, 15, 20 standard liters per minute of air, and furnace temperatures in the range of 200 to 1200 °C. The simulation results showed good agreement with maximum steady state error that is less than 6% of those obtained from the experiments among all runs. The proposed model can be implemented as a low-order physical model for the control of temperature inside plug-flow reactors for thermochemical energy storage (TCES) applications.


Author(s):  
Jingde Zhao ◽  
Jorge L. Alvarado ◽  
Ehsan M. Languri ◽  
Chao Wang

Heat transfer analysis of a high aspect ratio thermal energy storage (TES) device was carried out numerically. The three dimensional numerical study was performed to understand the heat transfer enhancement which results from internal natural convection in a high aspect ratio vertical unit. Octadecane was used as phase change material (PCM) inside TES system, which consisted of six corrugated panels filled with PCM. Each panel had a total of 6 tall cavities filled with PCM, which were exposed to external flow in a concentric TES system. Unlike traditional concentric-type TES devices where heat transfer by conduction is the dominant heat transport mechanism, the high aspect ratio TES configuration used in the study helped promote density-gradient based internal convection mechanism. The numerical model was solved based on the finite volume method, which captured the whole transient heat transfer process effectively. The time-dependent temperature profiles of the PCM inside a single TES panel are compared with the experimental results for two cases. Numerical and experimental results of the two cases showed a reasonable agreement. Furthermore, convection cells were formed and sustained when the PCM melted within the space between the solid core and the walls. The promising results of this numerical study illustrate the importance of internal natural convection on the speed of the PCM melting (charging) process.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenqian Chen ◽  
Mingwei Gu ◽  
Donghua Peng ◽  
Changhai Peng ◽  
Zhishen Wu

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