Numerical and experimental investigations on a packed bed latent heat storage system for low temperature air heating applications

Abstract

The looming uncertainty over future energy supplies and concern over environmental protection has drawn the attention of researchers to the utilization of renewable energy and waste heat sources The major technical constraint that prevents the successful implementation and effective utilization of renewable energy and waste heat sources is their intermittent nature and time mismatched availability and demand In order to reduce this mismatch the system utilizing these sources should be integrated with energy storage units Thermal energy can be stored in the form of the sensible heat of a solid or liquid medium the latent heat of a phase change substance or by a chemical reaction The Latent Heat Storage unit is particularly attractive due to its high energy storage density and its isothermal behavior during the energy storing and retrieval process The complexity of the phase change problems arises due to the moving boundary of the solid liquid interface the location of which is an unknown function of time Further practical situations that involve complex boundary conditions are multidimensional in nature