Heat Transfer and Thermodynamic Analyses of Some Typical Encapsulated Ice Geometries During Discharging Process

This study deals with the process of melting in some typical encapsulated ice thermal energy storage (TES) geometries. Cylindrical and slab capsules are compared with spherical capsules when subjected to a flowing heat transfer fluid (HTF). The effect of inlet HTF temperature and flow rate as well as the reference temperatures are investigated, and the resulting solidification and melting times, energy efficiencies, and exergy efficiencies are documented. Using ANSYS GAMBIT and FLUENT 6.0 softwares, all geometries are created, and the appropriate boundary and initial conditions are selected for the finite volume solver to proceed. Sufficient flow parameters are monitored during transient solutions to enable the calculation of all energy and exergy efficiencies. The energetically most efficient geometric scenario is obtained for the slab geometry, while the spherical geometry exergetically achieves the highest efficiencies. The difference between the two results is mainly through the accounting of entropy generation and exergy destroyed, and the largest mode of thermal exergy loss is found to be through entropy generation resulting from heat transfer accompanying phase change, although viscous dissipation is included in the analysis. All efficiency values tend to increase with decreasing HTF flow rate, but exergetically the best scenario appears to be for the spherical capsules with low inlet HTF temperature. Energy efficiency values are all well over 99%, while the exergy efficiency values range from around 72% to 84%, respectively. The results indicate that energy analyses, while able to predict viscous dissipation losses effectively, cannot correctly quantify losses inherent in cold TES systems, and in some instances predict higher than normal efficiencies and inaccurate optimal parameters when compared with exergy analyses.