Inherent fluctuations in the availability of energy from renewables, particularly solar, remain a substantial impediment to their widespread deployment worldwide. Employing phase-change materials (PCMs) as media, saving energy for later consumption, offers a promising solution for overcoming the problem. However, the heat conductivities of most PCMs are limited, which severely limits the energy storage potential of these materials. This study suggests employing circular fins with staggered distribution to achieve improved thermal response rates of PCM in a vertical triple-tube heat exchanger involving two opposite flow streams of the heat-transfer fluid (HTF). Since heat diffusion is not the same at various portions of the PCM unit,

This work is concerned with the design and performance evaluation of a shell and double concentric tubes heat exchanger using Solid Works and ANSY (Computational Fluid Dynamics).

Computational fluid dynamics technique which is a computer-based analysis is used to simulate the heat exchanger involving fluid flow, heat transfer. CFD resolve the entire heat exchanger in discrete elements to find: (1) the temperature gradients, (2) pressure distribution, and (3) velocity vectors.  The RNG k-ε model of turbulence is used to determining the accurate results from CFD.

The heat exchanger design for this work consisted of a shell and eight double concentric tubes. The number of inlets are three and that of o

Thermal energy storage is an important component in energy units to decrease the gap between energy supply and demand. Free convection and the locations of the tubes carrying the heat-transfer fluid (HTF) have a significant influence on both the energy discharging potential and the buoyancy effect during the solidification mode. In the present study, the impact of the tube position was examined during the discharging process. Liquid-fraction evolution and energy removal rate with thermo-fluid contour profiles were used to examine the performance of the unit. Heat exchanger tubes are proposed with different numbers and positions in the unit for various cases including uniform and non-uniform tubes distribution. The results show that

This study focuses on CFD analysis in the field of the shell and double concentric tube heat exchanger. A commercial CFD package was used to resolve the flow and temperature fields inside the shell and tubes of the heat exchanger used. Simulations by CFD are performed for the single shell and double concentric tube.

This heat exchanger included 16 tubes and 20 baffles. The shell had a length of 1.18 m and its diameter was 220 mm. Solid Works 2014, ANSYS 15.0 software was used to analyze the fields of flow and temperature inside the shell and the tubes. The RNG k-ε model was used and it provided good results. Coarse and fine meshes were investigated, showing that aspect ratio has no significant effect. 14 million

The solidification process in a multi-tube latent heat energy system is affected by the natural convection and the arrangement of heat exchanger tubes, which changes the buoyancy effect as well. In the current work, the effect of the arrangement of the tubes in a multi-tube heat exchanger was examined during the solidification process with the focus on the natural convection effects inside the phase change material (PCM). The behavior of the system was numerically analyzed using liquid fraction and energy released, as well as temperature, velocity and streamline profiles for different studied cases. The arrangement of the tubes, considering seven pipes in the symmetrical condition, are assumed at different positions in the system, i

Shell-and-double concentric tube heat exchanger is one of the new designs that enhance the heat transfer process. Entransy dissipation is a recent development that incorporates thermodynamics in the design and optimization of heat exchangers. In this paper the concept of entransy dissipation is related to the shell-and-double concentric tube heat exchanger for the first time, where the experiments were conducted using hot oil with temperature of 80, 100 and 120°C, flow rate of cold water was 0.667, 1, and 1.334 kg/m³ respectively and the temperature of inlet cold water was 20°C. The entransy dissipation rate due to heat transfer and to fluid friction or pressure drop was studied.

The effects of T-shaped fins on the improvement of phase change materials (PCM) melting are numerically investigated in vertical triple-tube storage containment. The PCM is held in the middle pipe of a triple-pipe heat exchanger while the heat transfer fluid flows through the internal and external pipes. The dimension effects of the T-shaped fins on the melting process of the PCM are investigated to determine the optimum case. Results indicate that while using T-shaped fins improves the melting performance of the PCM, the improvement potential is mainly governed by the fin’s body rather than the head. Hence, the proposed T-shaped fin did not noticeably improve melting at the bottom of the PCM domain; additionally, a flat fin is ad