Design of a Solar Thermal Storage System Employing Heat Pipes and Molten Salts

히트파이프와 용융염을 사용하는 태양열 축열조의 설계

Thermal design was conducted for a solar thermal storage system in a medium-temperature range between $200^{\circ}C$ and $400^{\circ}C$. The system was composed of heat pipes as heat carrier and molten salts as phase-change storage material. Each heat pipe penetrated through the storage system and had two heat-exchanging sections at both ends to interact with high-and low-temperature steams, while it exchanged heat with molten salts in the middle section. During a heat-storage mode, the heat pipes transferred heat from the hot steam at one side to the molten salts and it transferred heat from the molten salt to the cold steam at the other side during the heat-dissipating mode. A tube-bank type heat exchanger theory was applied to this design task to meet the required inlet and outlet temperatures of the steams depending on the operation modes. Several design variables were considered including the lengths of evaporator and condenser of a heat pipe, traverse and longitudinal pitches of the pipe, and the number of rows of the heat pipes for two different molten salt baths. An optimum design results were presented with discussion.