• Solar Energy
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.44-52
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• 1991

The benefits of thermal stratification in sensible heat storage systems has been considered and studying by several investigators. In this paper, the basic data which is hard to obtain normally through the experiment were obtainable through the computer simulation. The major objectives of the study were to assess the benefits of stratified storage in residential solar water heating application and to suggest the optimum design parameters. From the computer simulation, following results were obtained. 1. The solar load fraction increases with increasing the number of tank segments. In these simulation, the magnitude of the improvement was about 10%. 2. The solar load fraction increases when the ratio of diameter to height of the tank(H/D) increases to 3, but H/D exceed 3 then, the solar load fraction decreases. In these simulation, the magnitude of the improvement was about 3%. 3. Increasing the collector flow rate slightly improved the performance of the mixed storage system(Node=1). But, for the stratified storage system(Node=N), the solar load fraction increases with decreasing flow rate until the point is reached at which the collector outlet temperature reaches the boiloff limit of $100^{\circ}C$ over some portion of the simulation period.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.184-195
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• 1995

A theoretical one-dimensional model for the charging process in stratified thermal storage tanks is established presuming that the fluid ensuing from the tank inlet creates a perfectly mixed, layer above the thermocline. Both the generic and asymptotic closed-form solutions are obtained via the Laplace transformation. The asymptotic solution describes the nature of the charging pertaining to the case of no thermal diffusion, whereas the generic solution is of practical importance to understand the role of operating parameters on the stratification. The present model is validated through comparison with available experimental data, where they agree well with each other within a reasonable limit. An interpretation of the exact solution entails two important features associated with the charging process. The first is that an in-crease in the mixing depth $h_m$ causes a relatively slow temperature rise in the perfectly mixed region, but on the other hand it results in a faster decay of the overall temperature gradient across the thermocline. Next is the predominance of the mixing depth in the presence of the prefectly mixed region. In such a case the effect of the Peclet number is marginal and there-fore the thermal characteristics are solely dependent on the mixing depth paticularly for large $h_m$. The Peclet number affects significantly only for the case without mixing. Variation of the storage efficiency in response to the change in the mass flow rate agrees favorably with the published experimental results, which confirms the utility of the present study.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.990-997
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• 2005

The stratified effect was investigated with three different types of diffuser shape in a thermal storage tank with variation of diffuser diameter, velocity, Froude number etc. Its effect was estimated by the degree of stratification. No matter of diffuser diameter and shape, the degree of stratification was the best as the Froude number gets closer to 1. In the case of a curved diffuser, when its diameter is a quarter of tank diameter and ejection velocity in a diffuser is approximately 0.2 m/s, the Froude number was almost 1. In the case of a flatted diffuser, when ejection velocity was 0.05 m/s, the Froude number was 1.5. Both cases which Froude number were nearer 1, showed the good degree of stratification.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.9-20
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• 1989

This paper presents an analysis to predict thermal behaviors of water in ice storage tank during the coldness release process. To deal with complicated transient phenomena due to ice-water phase change and the density inversion, a theoretical model which consists of initial perfectly mixed, stratified and thermal diffusion state was introduced and a criterion on the growth of thermal boundary layer was developed. The analysis includes considerations on the type of ice-making heat exchanger, refrigerator on/off and tank arrangement. Also, discussions on the various parameters and operating conditions which have influence on the performance of the system were made. Finally, simulated results were shown, which agreed with experiments in trends reasonably.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.37-46
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• 2001

This study describes the experimental study that focuses on the effects that distributor shapes and flow rate variations have an influence on the stratification in a rectangular thermal storage tank. Experiments were carried out under the conditions that the flow rates of working fluid are 20, 10 and $5\ell$/min. The storage tank is initially filled with chilled water of $1^{\circ}C$, and is extracted through the bottom at the same rate as the return warm water from load is entered through the distributor at the top of the tank. The thermo-cline forms at the top of the storage tank as the warm water enters the tank from the load through the distributor and the thermo-cline thickness increases with time. Emphasis is given to the effects of mixing at the inlet that increases the thermo-cline decay Flow rate variation and inlet distributor shapes are the important parameters in deciding the performance of a storage system. Stratification degree increases with decreasing in inlet flow rate under $10\ell$/min. Experiments shows that better thermal stratification can be obtain using the distributor to limit momentum mixing at the inlets and outlets. Also, 12% of improvement in the thermal energy usage has been achieved using the modified distributor discharging same flow rate in each lateral ports.

• 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.

• Solar Energy
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• v.13 no.2_3
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• pp.45-52
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• 1993

The benefits of thermal stratification in sensible heat storage were investigated for residential solar applications. The effect of increased thermal useful efficiency of hot water stored in an actual storage tank due to stratification has been discussed and illustrated through experimental data and computer simulation, which were taken by changing dynamic and geometric parameters. When the flow rate was 8 liter/min and ${\Delta}T=40^{\circ}C$ was $40^{\circ}C$, the useful efficiency(${\eta}_u$) was about 90% in case of using a distributor, but not using a distributor the useful efficiency(${\eta}_u$) was about 82%. So these kinds of distributor would be recommendable for a hot water storage system and residential solar energy application to increase useful efficiency(${\eta}_u$). In the case of the uniform circular distributor, when the flow rate was 8 liter/min partial mixing was decreased and a stable stratification was obtained. Furthermore, if the distrbutor was manufactured so that the flow is to be the same from all perforations in order to enhance stratification, it might be predicted that further stable stratification and higher useful efficiency(${\eta}_u$) are obtainable.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.579-589
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• 1985

The storage tank of the natural-circulation-solar-hot-water system equipped with flat-plate solar collectors is located at higher elevation than the solar collectors. Therefore, the heat loss from the system due to a reversed flow during the night-time is an important factor as well as the day-time thermal performance of the system. The thermal performance of the natural-circulation-solar-hot-water system with flat-plate solar collectors during the day-time depends mainly on the heat collecting efficiency of the solar collectors, whereas its thermal performance during the night-time depends on the system configuration , such as the elevation of the water storage tank with respect to the solar collectors and the piping connections between the storage tank and the solar collectors, as well as thermo-physical properties of the circulating fluid. In the present work, a computer program has been developed to simulate a typical natural-circulation-solar-hot-water-system, and a series of simulation tests have been carried out with the computer program to examine the thermal performance of the system during the day-time as well as the hight-time. In addition , a series of experiment have been conducted under a real sun condition using a natural-circulation-solar-hot-water-system constructed and installed at the KAIST building to compare with the results obtained from computer simulations.

• The Magazine of the Society of Air-Conditioning and Refrigerating Engineers of Korea
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.87-96
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• 1986

An experiment on the devices that enchance the stratification of storage tanks in a solar heat ins system has been carried out. The benefits of thermal stratification in sensible heat storage are to increase the system performance such as the collector efficiency or the fraction of the total load supplied by solar energy. Using the diffuser and the distributor as the stratification enchancement device, the expeliments were perfomed in the different condition of diameter and material of the distributor. As a result of experiments, there exists the diameter of distributor in which the stratification is made maximum under certain design and operation condition. Also it was identified that the kind of distributor material influenced the degree of stratification. Comparing the experimental result to the computational results calculated under the same conditions, the node number N(stratification index) was determined. The results of computer simulation that was performed about the actual solar heating system in Seoul for 24 hours show the relative advantage of stratified over well-mixed storage and the significant improvements in system performance.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.820-829
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• 2004

The In-Containment Refueling Water Storage Tank (IRWST), one of the design improvements applied to the APR -1400, has a function to condense the high enthalpy fluid discharged from the Reactor Coolant System (RCS). The condensation of discharged fluid by the tank water drives the tank temperature high and causes oscillatory condensation. Also if the tank cooling water temperature approaches the saturated state, the steam bubble may escape from the water uncondensed. These oscillatory condensation and bubble escape would burden the undue load to the tank structure, pressurize the tank, and degrade its intended function. For these reasons simple analytical modeling and experimental works were performed in order to predict exact tank temperature distribution and to find the effective cooling method to keep the tank temperature below the bubble escape limit (93.3$^{\circ}C$), which was experimentally proven by other researchers. Both the analytical model and experimental results show that the temperature distributions are horizontally stratified. Particularly, the hot liquid produced by the condensation around the sparger holes goes up straight like a thermal plume. Also, the momentum of the discharged fluid is not so strong to interrupt this horizontal thermal stratification significantly. Therefore the layout and shape of sparger is not so important as long as the location of the sparger hole is sufficiently close to the bottom of the tank. Finally, for the effective tank cooling it is recommended that the locations of the discharge and intake lines of the cooling system be cautiously selected considering the temperature distribution, the water level change, and the cooling effectiveness.