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Numerical study on the thermal performance of packed-bed latent heat thermal energy storage system with biomimetic alveoli structure capsule

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Abstract

Bionics provides a positive and beneficial impact on the development of various materials and systems, which has been widely used in energy storage, heat transfer enhancement, and solar thermochemical reactions. In this paper, the idea of heat storage unit with biomimetic alveoli structure is proposed and introduced to increase the heat transfer area and improve the thermal performance of the packed-bed latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) system. The effects of heat storage unit structure on temperature distribution, liquid fraction, thermal storage capacity, and other performance indexes of the conventional model and biomimetic model are analyzed. The numerical results indicate that the biomimetic alveoli structure can improve the thermal response of heat storage unit, increase the specific surface area, and achieve a faster heat storage process of the packed-bed compared with the conventional structure. Among various existing models, the double-cell model has a significant improvement. Compared with the conventional model, the maximum increase of liquid fraction and charging efficiency are 9.8% and 6.4%, respectively. This study can provide references to optimize packed-bed LHTES and improve its thermal performance under practical conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    FuQiang Wang

  2. School of New Energy, Harbin Institute of Technology, Weihai, 264209, China

    FuQiang Wang, Yan Dong, Jie Xu & GuoLiang Zhang

  3. School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Yan Dong

  4. College of Petroleum Engineering, Liaoning Shihua University, Fushun, 113001, China

    Yang Li

Authors
  1. FuQiang Wang
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  2. Yan Dong
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  3. Yang Li
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  4. Jie Xu
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  5. GuoLiang Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yang Li.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA0702300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52006094 and 52076064), and the Taishan Scholars of Shandong Province (Grant No. tsqn201812105). The authors thank Dr. Chuanxin Zhang for the idea and useful discussion.

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Wang, F., Dong, Y., Li, Y. et al. Numerical study on the thermal performance of packed-bed latent heat thermal energy storage system with biomimetic alveoli structure capsule. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 64, 1544–1554 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1769-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1769-9

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