THERMAL STORAGE AS A WAY TO ATTENUATE FLUID-TEMPERATURE FLUCTUATIONS: SENSIBLE-HEAT VERSUS LATENT-HEAT STORAGE MATERIALS

摘要

A stable fluid temperature is quite important in many technical applications and thermal storage is one of the ways to attenuate fluid-temperature fluctuations. Both sensible- and latent-heat storage materials can be used for this purpose. A theoretical study comprising numerical simulations was conducted in order to investigate the behaviors of sensible- and latent-heat storage for attenuating fluid-temperature fluctuations. The studied case was a circular channel, through which a fluid passed, surrounded by a thermal-storage material. Two sensible-heat storage materials (copper and concrete) and two latent-heat storage materials (n-octadecane and calcium chloride hexahydrate) were considered in the performed study. Water was the fluid in all the studied cases. The main goal of the investigations was to assess the thermal response of each variant under the same conditions. The length of the channel, the flow rate of water and the volume of the heat-storage material were the same in all the variants.