Heat Transfer Characteristics of Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage for Floating Concentrate Solar Power Systems

Abstract

The heat transfer characteristics of the latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) for floating concentrated solar power (CSP) systems were investigated experimentally and numerically. The understanding of natural convection heat transfer between the heat transfer fluid (HTF) and a tube bundle in the heat exchanger is important for the thermal design of the LHTES. As a primitive study, the analytical model of natural convection heat transfer was developed between the HTF and the tube bundle in the heat exchanger of LHTES. In this study, D-mannitol was used as the HTF for the LHTES. To simplify the tube bundle of the heat exchanger, a heated cylinder was installed in the liquid D-mannitol. In the experiment, the average temperature of the cylinder and the heat flux were measured, and the heat transfer coefficient under the natural convection was obtained. Meanwhile, the numerical analysis of natural convection heat transfer was conducted using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD), PHOENICS. The temperature and velocity profiles around the heated cylinder were obtained in the numerical simulation. The heat transfer coefficient was compared with the author’s experimental data. The numerical result was in good agreement with the measured heat transfer coefficient.