RMIT University
Browse

A new design concept of thermal storage tank for adaptive heat charging in solar heating system

journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-02, 12:32 authored by Jiarong Li, Xiangdong Li, Ruiqing Du, Yong Wang, Jiyuan TuJiyuan Tu
A new design of storage tank with multiple outlets for storing solar thermal energy is proposed and investigated. The storage tank is featured with one fixed inlet port and three outlet ports at different heights. The new design provides an adaptive effective tank volume to cater for the dynamic solar heat supply. As an alternative of variable-volume tank, it helps improve the system performance and build a more flexible system. Using CFD simulations, the present work compares the transient temperature contours in the new design against those in a conventional tank during a charging process. Energy and exergy analysis are performed to investigate the thermal storing performance of a solar heating system with the new tank. It is found that the new storage tank is particularly useful in shortening the thermal response time and generating more useful energy and exergy in the cloudy day, by 12.7% and 20%, respectively, over a traditional tank.

History

Journal

Applied Thermal Engineering

Volume

165

Number

114617

Start page

1

End page

11

Total pages

11

Publisher

Elsevier Ltd

Place published

United Kingdom

Language

English

Copyright

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Former Identifier

2006096735

Esploro creation date

2020-06-22

Fedora creation date

2020-04-09

Usage metrics

    Scholarly Works

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC