• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.43-54
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• 1997

This paper presents an approximate analytical solution to a two-region one-dimensional model for the charging process of stratified thermal storage tanks with variable inlet temperature in the presence of momentum-induced mixing. Based on the superposition principle, an arbitrary-varying inlet temperature is decomposed into inherent discontinuous steps and continuous intervals approximated as a finite number of piecewise linear functions. This approximation allows the temperature of the upper perfectly-mixed layer to be expressed in terms of constant, linear and exponential functions with respect to time. Applying the Laplace transform technique to the model equation for the lower thermocline layer subject to each of three representative interfacial conditions yields compact-form solutions, a linear combination of which constitutes the final temperature profile. A systematic method for deriving solutions to the plug-flow problem having polynomial-type boundary conditions is also established. The effect of adiabatic exit boundary on solution behaviors proves to be negligible under the actual working conditions, which justifies the assumption of semi-infinite domain introduced in the solution procedure. Finally, the approximate solution is validated by comparing it with an exact solution obtained for a specific variation of inlet temperature. Excellent agreements between them suffice to show the necessity and utility of this work.

• Solar Energy
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.25-37
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• 1995

This paper presents an approximate analytical solution to one-dimensional model of the charging process for stratified thermal storage tanks, in which variation of the inlet temperature as well as the momemtum-induced mixing is taken into accout. The mixing is incorporated into the model as a constant-depth perfectly mixed layer above the plug flow region. Based on the superposition principle, the variable inlet temperature is approximated by a number of step functions. Temperature distributions for the thermocline corresponding to three types of interfacial condition arr successfully derived in terms of well-defined functions, so that a linear combination of them constitutes the final solution. Validity and utility of this work is examined through the comparison of the approximate solution with an exact solution available for the case of linearly increasing inlet temperature. With increasing the number of steps, the present solution asymptotically approaches to the exact one. Even with a limited number of steps, the present results favorably agree with those by the exact solution for a wide range of the mixing depth. Also, it is revealed that fewer steps are needed for meaningful predictions as the mixing. depth becomes larger.