In the current study, the thermal characteristics of a low-temperature latent heat thermal energy storage system are studied numerically. A cylinder container encloses a paraffin-based PCM, which is heated via a heat transfer fluid passing through a tube at the center. Heat pipes are incorporated into the PCM to enhance the heat transfer rate between the heat transfer fluid and the PCM. In addition, high thermal conductive nanoparticles are dispersed into the PCM to increase its thermal conductivity. A transient model is developed using ANSYS-FLUENT to simulate the charging process and study the impact of heat pipes and nanoparticles on the performance of the system. The effects of different parameters, such as the quantities of heat pipes as well as the nanoparticles types and volume fraction, are investigated.
Experimental and numerical analysis of a packed-bed thermal energy storage system designed to recover high temperature waste heat: an industrial scale up