Investigation of Integrated Solar Energy System for Cascade Process Heating Applications
Date23rd Oct 2023
Time03:00 PM
Venue Through Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/nzq-hsvj-euz
PAST EVENT
Details
An integrated solar energy system that includes a concentrated solar power (CSP) system with thermal energy storage (TES) is a technology designed to capture and store solar energy in the form of heat. This system primarily generates high-temperature heat that can be harnessed for cascade process heating applications (60-250 ℃), including cooking, drying, and space heating. One such CSP system is the Parabolic Dish Collector (PDC), used for energy conversion, and the Phase Change Material (PCM) based TES system adopted for energy storing. Phase change material (PCM) based thermal energy storage (TES) systems represent a pivotal innovation in energy management and utilization. These systems leverage the latent heat of phase transitions to store and release thermal energy efficiently. These systems offer high energy density and improve heat transfer performance by encapsulating PCM within a specifically designed container, i.e., shell and tube type TES. In this work, the performance assessment has been done for both PDC and TES systems. Firstly, the coupled optical-thermal model was developed by adopting Monte-Carlo ray tracing and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for evaluating the performance of a 40 m2 PDC at various inclinations under varying wind characteristics. CFD was used for modeling conjugate heat transfer of the absorbed solar heat to Therminol 66, a heat transfer fluid (HTF) in the conical-shaped receiver tube, while considering the heat losses. The variations in thermal performance with the inclination angle γ, wind speed V of varying directions ψ, and HTF inlet temperature T_(HTF,i) were discussed. For the dish considered, 66-80% of absorbed solar heat was carried to the HTF under different conditions. Further, for the TES system, a 3D cyclic periodic model for TES was developed based on hexagonal circle packing and investigated the effective energy storage ratio E_st as performance index under varying geometrical and operating parameters. The variation in parameters includes tube length L, diameter d, initial temperature T_o, volumetric flow rate V ̇, and inlet temperature T_i. Using a conjugate heat transfer model, the parameters' influence was investigated, and the performance index was evaluated on the grounds of effectiveness-NTU theory. The optimum performance index of 1.54 was achieved for pure PCM. Next, the optimum performance of both systems was compared with existing work and found to be performing well.
Speakers
Mr. Abhinav Rajan, ME18D035
Department of Mechanical Engineering