Study on effective front region thickness of PCM in thermal energy storage using a novel semi-theoretical model
Rafał Andrzejczyk, Muhammad Saqib, Tomasz Kowalczyk, Hafız Muhammad Ali
Abstract
Thermal energy storage in mobile applications, particularly battery of electric vehicles, is currently gaining a lot of importance. In this paper, a semi-theoretical time-dependent mathematical model of the phase change in a double shell thermal energy storage module has been developed where the inner tube is a heat exchange surface. An effective front region thickness for the melting and solidification process has been studied. The proposed model is calibrated based on our experimental data. The purpose of such a model is to enable the optimization of the geometry of the energy storage modules in terms of the PCM to the TES container mass ratio and enhancement of phase change rate. In addition, results obtained for a single tube can be used in the bundle of tubes in shell and tube TES design. The results have shown that for the larger diameter of the module (smaller difference between the working tube and shell diameter) the optimal working time is around 2000 s.