Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
PCM SOLIDIFICATION AROUND THE PARALLEL PLATES OF A STORAGE SYSTEM
Submission Author:
Antonio Bruno de Vasconcelos Leitão , PI , Brazil
Co-Authors:
Antonio Bruno de Vasconcelos Leitão, Kamal Ismail, Fátima Lino, JORGE RECARTE HENRIQUEZ GUERRERO
Presenter: Antonio Bruno de Vasconcelos Leitão
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-1918
Abstract
Ice banks are important in balancing the demand for electricity because they accumulate energy in the form of cold during off-peak periods to be used during periods of high consumption, especially during peak hours. This energy accumulation in the phase change material, in these cases water, is a well-accepted technology and is expanding in several fields of engineering and building applications. In this study, a thermal model based on pure conduction is developed to describe the solidification process in a parallel plate storage system. For the solution of this model the governing equations for the solid and liquid phases and to the interface moving are discretized using the finite difference approximation and totally implicit approach with variable time step. The computational code representing the thermal model for phase change process around the parallel plates of a storage system was tested and validated against available numerical and experimental results, showing good agreement. The energy stored, the interface position, the interface velocity and the time for complete solidification are presented and discussed in terms of the temperature of the cold plate and the distance between the plates. With the decrease in temperature on the plate surface, there is a reduction in the time for the complete phase change and an increase in the solidification rate. However, increasing the distance between the plates contributes to a longer time for complete solidification. The contribution of this study through the adopted model and solution method aims at a provisional way of obtaining an evaluation of this type of storage configuration and expanding its use in commercial applications and in scientific research, in addition to predicting its thermal performance parameters quickly and accurately. Therefore, the model developed to analyze the thermal performance of the storage tank contributes some new and relevant data on this type of system and can be useful for designers in that specific area.
Keywords
Solidification, Thermal Storage, Parallel Plates, Phase Change Material
