There is a growing interest in sustainable energy sources for energy demand growth of power industries. To align the demand and the consumption of electrical energy, thermal energy storage appears as an efficient method. In the summer days, by using a cold storage system like ice storage, peaks of the energy usage shift to low-load hours of midnights. Here, we investigate the charging process (namely solidification) numerically in an ice-on-coil thermal energy storage configuration, where ice is formed around the coil or tube to store the chilled energy. The considered ice storage system is a shell and tube configuration, with three kinds of tubes including a U-shaped tube, a coil tube with an inner return line, and a coil tube with an outer return line. Advanced 3D unsteady simulations are achieved to determine the effects of tube type and position of the ice storage (horizontal or vertical) on the solidification process. Results indicate that using a coil tube speeds up the ice formation, as compared with the simple U-shaped tube. The coil tube with an outer return line exhibits a better performance (more produced ice), as compared with the coil tube with an inner return line. After 16 h of solidification, the coil tube with the outer return line has about 1.057% and 1.32% lower liquid fraction in comparison with the coil tube with the inner return line and U-shaped tube, respectively, for both positions (vertical and horizontal).
Solidification in a shell-and-tube thermal energy storage unit filled with longitude fins and metal foam: a numerical study
