Abstract
One of the best methods for seasonal storage of solar heat is the storage of hot water in large unlined rock caverns. A safe method to build self stabilizing very large caverns is to excavate them partially, i.e. to leave a considerable amount of the blasted rock in the cavern.
The remaining rock in such a hot water store represents an undesired thermal inertia and it is of great practical interest to estimate how the remaining blocks influence the performance of the store.
If the cavity is assumed to be spherical, the remaining blocks spherical as well, the heat diffusitivity of the solid matter constant and the water well stirred, the temperature of the water can rather easily be calculated. In the present paper it is shown that the coupled system of partial differential equations and one ordinary differential equation can be reduced to a Volterra integral equation. The calculations show how the porosity and the size of the remaining blocks influence the water temperature if an arbitrary power is added to or extracted from the cavern.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Carslaw, H.S. and Jaeger, J.C.: Conduction of Heat in Solids. Oxford 1959.
Bjurström, S., Karlsson, P.O. and Martna, J.: The Avesta project. A test plant for storage of heated water in rock caverns. Proc. of the Int. Symp. Rock Store -80 Stockholm (1980), Vol. 2, p. 571–578.
Martna, J.: The Avesta test plant for storage of hot water in an unlined rock cavern. Proc. of the Int. Cont. on Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage. Seattle (1981), Vol. 1, pp. 186–192.
Rehbinder, G.: Wave propagation at the interface in a hot water store. Journ. of Energy Resources Technology, ASME transactions 104 (1982) 389–392.
Martna, J.: The Avesta research plant for hot water storage. State of the project. Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Subsurface Heat Storage in Theory and Practice. Stockholm (1983) Appendix Part 1, p. 367–372.
Bjurström, S. et al.: Stability of a rock opening subjected to pulsating temperature. Proc. of the Fifth Int. Cong. on Rock Mechanics. Melbourne 1983. Sect. E, pp. 173–179.
Brander, O. and Rehbinder, G.: A theoretical analysis of the dynamics of hot water underground stores of general shape. Journ. of Physics. D. Appl. Physics 16 (1983) 2039–2060.
Vasseur, B.: Heat loss from and stability problems in a water filled density stratified rock cavern. Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Subsurface Heat Storage in Theory and Practice. Stockholm (1983) Appendix Part 1, pp. 396–400.
Rehbinder, G.: Strains and stresses in the rock around an unlined hot water cavern. Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering 17 (1984) 129–145.
Rehbinder, G. and Reichel, L.: Heat conduction in a rock mass with an annular hot water store. Int. Journ. on Heat and Fluid Flow 5 (3) (1983) 131–137.
Stoer, J.: Einführung in die Numerische Mathematik. Springer Verlag, 1983.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rehbinder, G., Eriksson, H. Thermal dynamics of a block-filled underground hot water store. Applied Scientific Research 43, 193–211 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00418005
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00418005