Solar Energy Vol. 65, No. 3, pp.

171–180, 1999
 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd
Pergamon PII: S 0 0 3 8 – 0 9 2 X ( 9 8 ) 0 0 1 2 8 – 5 All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain
0038-092X / 99 / $ - see front matter

HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT IN A LATENT HEAT STORAGE

SYSTEM†
R. VELRAJ* , ‡, R. V. SEENIRAJ*, B. HAFNER**, C. FABER** and K. SCHWARZER** , §
*Department of Mechanical Engineering, Anna University, Madras 600025, India
¨
**Solar Institute Julich, ¨
Fachhochschule Aachen, Julich, D-52428, Germany

Received 18 September 1997; revised version accepted 6 October 1998

Communicated by ERICH HAHNE

Abstract—Commercial acceptance and the economics of solar thermal technologies are tied to the design and
development of efficient, cost-effective thermal storage systems. Thermal storage units that utilize latent heat
storage materials have received greater attention in the recent years because of their large heat storage capacity
and their isothermal behavior during the charging and discharging processes. One major issue that needs to be
addressed is that most phase-change materials (PCM) with high energy storage density have an unacceptably
low thermal conductivity and hence heat transfer enhancement techniques are required for any latent heat
thermal storage (LHTS) applications. In the present paper the various heat transfer enhancement methods for
LHTS systems are discussed. Three different experiments to augment heat transfer were conducted and the
findings are reported.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. INTRODUCTION the LHTS systems. The heat transfer enhancement

required for melting or solidification depends on
Efficient and reliable thermal storage systems are
the type of application. Some applications require
an important requirement for solar applications
heat to be charged at a faster rate while others
due to the anti cyclic nature of heat demand and
require heat to be discharged at a faster rate. In
availability of solar radiation and also due to the
applications like waste heat recovery, where the
diurnal variation of solar radiation caused by
process is intermittent and a large amount of
weather variations. Among the thermal energy
waste heat is to be recovered from the process
storage concepts, both sensible heat and latent
stream during a short time, heat transfer enhance-
heat (i.e., phase change) stores are under in-
ment is required for charging. On the other hand,
vestigation. The major advantages of phase
if the heat is available at a constant rate for a
change stores are their large heat storage capacity
longer time and it is to be removed in a shorter
and their isothermal behavior during the charging
time like solar domestic hot water applications,
and discharging process.
then the enhancement is required for solidifica-
In a latent heat thermal storage (LHTS) system,
tion. As the present work is aimed for solar
during phase change the solid–liquid interface
domestic hot water and space heating applications
moves away from the heat transfer surface. Dur-
the study is focused on enhancement methods for
ing this process, the surface heat flux decreases
the solidification process. This study is performed
due to the increasing thermal resistance of the
for a non dynamic latent heat storage system
growing layer of the molten / solidified medium. In
without direct contact between the PCM and the
the case of solidification, conduction is the sole
heat transfer fluid (HTF).
transport mechanism, and in the case of melting,
natural convection occurs in the melt layer and
this generally increases the heat transfer rate 2. REVIEW OF HEAT TRANSFER
compared to the solidification process. This de- ENHANCEMENT METHODS
crease of the heat transfer rate calls for the usage
of proper heat transfer enhancement techniques in 2.1. Enhancement with fin configurations
There are several methods to enhance the heat
†Paper presented at the ISES Solar World Congress, Taejon, transfer in a LHTS system. The use of finned
South Korea, 24–29 August 1997. tubes with different configurations has been pro-
‡Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. posed by various researchers as an efficient means
§ ISES member. to improve the charge / discharge capacity of a

171
172 R. Velraj et al.
LHTS system. Experimental studies have been
performed by Sparrow et al. (1981) for outward
solidification on a longitudinal finned vertical
tube, viz. for conduction-controlled or natural-
convection-controlled heat transfer. Conduction is
the controlling mode when the liquid is at its
fusion temperature, whereas natural convection
controls when the liquid is above the fusion
temperature. It is concluded that for conduction
control, the enhancement of freezing due to
finning is less than the area ratio of the finned and
unfinned tubes, whereas for natural convection
control, the enhancement is very nearly equal to
the area ratio. It is also stated that when conduc-
tion controls, freezing continues more or less
indefinitely, whereas natural convection severely
retards the freezing and ultimately terminates it
altogether in the vertical tube arrangement. Smith
and Koch (1982) have formulated finite difference
equations based on conduction heat transfer for
phase change occurring adjacent to a cooled flat
surface containing fins. They have discussed the
effects of fin conduction parameter and fin dimen-
sions on solidification rate and heat transfer.
Lacroix (1993) has presented a theoretical
model for predicting the transient behavior of a
shell-and-tube storage test unit having annular fins
externally fixed on the inner tube with the PCM
on the shell-side and the HTF flowing inside the
tube. The numerical results have also been val-
idated with experimental data for various parame-
ters like shell radius, mass flow rate and inlet
temperature of the HTF. Padmanabhan and Kris-
hna Murthy (1986) have also studied the phase
change process occurring in a cylindrical annulus
in which (i) rectangular, uniformly spaced longi-
tudinal fins, spanning the annulus (ii) annular fins
are attached to the outer surface of the inner
isothermal tube, while the outer tube is made
adiabatic. They have performed parametric analy-
sis and based on the results they have suggested
working formulae to obtain the volume fraction
solidified at any time for both the cases.
All the earlier work relate to the enhancement
study for outward solidification on finned tubes.
Recently Velraj et al. (1997) have presented
theoretical and experimental work for a thermal
storage unit consisting of a cylindrical vertical
tube with internal longitudinal fins and this tube
assembly is, in turn, placed inside another cylin-
drical vessel containing water. It was concluded
that this configuration which forms a V-shaped
enclosure for the phase change material gives
maximum benefit to the fin arrangement. Sauer
(1982) describes a latent heat storage concept that
makes use of inward solidification and outward
melting simultaneously. The system consists of
two concentric pipes forming an annulus within
which the PCM is maintained. Through the inner
pipe the warm fluid is circulated and the cold fluid
surrounds the outer tube. Fins are uniformly
placed in the PCM region spanning the entire
annulus. Eftekhar et al. (1984) have experimental-
ly studied a different heat transfer enhancement
method for melting of paraffin by constructing a
model that consists of vertically arranged fins
between two isothermal planes (the bottom one
being hotter than the top) which not only provides
additional conduction paths but also promotes
natural convection within the molten PCM. Their
photographs of the molten zone indicate that a
buoyant flow induced in the neighborhood of the
vertical fin causes rapid melting of the solid wax.
The objective of their research was to study the
enhancement of heat transfer during heating cycle
with paraffin wax as the PCM.
2.2. Other enhancement techniques
Several other heat transfer enhancement tech-
niques for LHTS systems have been studied and
reported by various researchers. A few important
methods among them are, inserting a metal matrix
into a PCM, using PCM dispersed with high
conductivity particles and micro-encapsulation of
PCM.
Siegel (1977) has studied the improvement in
solidification rate in molten salt dispersed with
high conductivity particles. He has presented
results of one dimensional analysis for three
geometry’s of practical interest, viz., solidification
on a flat plate, inside a tube and outside a tube.
He has concluded that even though there is
improvement in heat transfer rate, there is a
compensating effect due to the reduction in
volume fraction occupied by the phase change
material. For a reasonable fraction of the particles
in the PCM, moderate improvement in heat
transfer is achieved. He also observed that, com-
pared with a plane layer, the improvement is less
for solidification inside a tube and somewhat
greater for outside a tube. Hoogendoorn and Bart
(1992) have reported that the low value of the
thermal conductivity of the PCMs could be great-
ly improved by embedding a metal matrix struc-
ture in them. A numerical simulation model for
the transient heat transfer in a PCM heat storage
vessel has been formulated by them and is
included in TRNSYS. Khan and Rohatgi (1994)
have studied the heat transfer characteristics dur-
ing solidification in the presence of cylindrical
 Heat transfer enhancement in a latent heat storage system
reinforcements, including graphite, alumina, iron
and copper in an aluminium–silicon alloy base
and lead-base composite. They have reported that
the rate of movement of interface is strongly
dependent on the thermal conductivity ratio of
reinforcement to the melt. Tong et al. (1996) have
done a theoretical heat transfer study on a vertical
annular space filled with water (as PCM) and
aluminium matrix. Their numerical results are
presented in the form of solid–liquid interface
movements, isotherms, streamlines and heat trans-
fer rate for some representative cases. The heat
transfer rates for enhanced cases show an order-
of-magnitude increase over the base case, where
no metal matrix is inserted.
Stovall and Arimilli (1988) have evaluated
three methods to enhance the thermal conductivity
of the thermal storage media using LiH as the
PCM. One method is to replace a portion of the
PCM with a reticulated metal. The second method
uses fins made of SS304 with fin volume fraction
ranging from 5 to 50%. The third method uses Li
in the form of LiH salt and molten Li slurry.
Chow et al. (1996) have evaluated two thermal
conductivity enhancement techniques. The first
technique focuses on placing PCM in capsules of
various shapes in a liquid metal medium. The
second technique involves a metal / PCM compo-
site. The work was stimulated by the need of high
temperature energy storage for future space power
generation systems.
3. EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
In the present work three different heat transfer
enhancement methods are investigated (see Fig.
1). The first enhancement technique uses internal
Fig. 1. Paraffin storage tube cross section and thermocouple
locations for the configurations (a) plain tube (b) with fins (c)
with lessing rings (d) with bubble agitation.
173
longitudinal fins inside a cylindrical vertical stor-
age tube containing paraffin. In the second meth-
od, the tube is filled with lessing rings of 1 cm
diameter which are commonly used in the chemi-
cal reactors to enhance the surface contact, and
the molten paraffin is poured into the tube. These
lessing rings are made of steel and have a thin-
walled hollow cylindrical structure with a parti-
tion. Without partition these rings are known as
Raschig-rings. A photographic view of the lessing
rings is shown in Fig. 2. The molten paraffin
occupies 80% of the storage volume. In the third
method a very small amount of water is poured
into the tube. Molten paraffin is then added and
the tube is evacuated by a vacuum pump. The
vacuum is maintained such that the saturation
temperature of the water inside the tube is nearly
equal to the phase change temperature of the
PCM. The intention is to create steam bubbles
inside the PCM during the phase change that
would promote the heat transfer.
3.1. Experimental setup
Fig. 3 is a schematic of the storage unit. It
consists of the vertical cylindrical storage tube
made of aluminium, with an outside diameter of 6
cm, an inside diameter of 5.4 cm and an active
length of 60 cm. The tube is, placed inside
another cylindrical vessel with 25 cm diameter
and having the same height as the tube, containing
water and the vessel is well insulated. The
temperature of the water bath is controlled by a
thermostat, having a variable heating coil capacity
of 500, 1000 and 2000 W. A magnetic stirrer is
provided at the bottom of the trough to have a
uniform temperature in the axial direction of the
cylindrical vessel. A small top portion of the tube
unit is kept above the water level to provide
convenient thermocouple connections and for
easy handling of the tube from outside. While
conducting experiments with fins, an assembly of
four aluminium fins with the dimensions of 0.15
cm thickness, 2.7 cm height and 50 cm length
each, and forming a cross shaped cross-section is
placed inside the tube and welded at the top and
bottom of the tube. The intermediate length of the
fin was thermally bonded to the tube by solder.
For all the experiments, NiCr–Ni thermocou-
ples are placed in two different horizontal planes,
at a distance of 20 cm and 35 cm from the bottom
of the tube as shown in Fig. 3. The position of the
thermocouples in one plane for all the configura-
tions is shown in Fig. 1. The thermocouples are
mounted at suitable locations where the end
effects (heat flow from the bottom of the tube
174
Fig. 2. A photographic view of the lessing rings.
which could cause heat flow in the axial direction
within the paraffin) are not present. Three ther-
mocouples are located in the surrounding water
bath at different heights to monitor and ensure
that there is minimum temperature variation in the
axial direction. The thermocouples are connected
to a recorder, which can provide instantaneous
analog and digital outputs. The recorder has an
accuracy of 60.05% of the reading 1 0.58C, and
a resolution of 0.18C for the measurements with K
type thermocouple. Molten paraffin is poured into
the tube carefully avoiding cavities. For the
experiments with the plain tube, paraffin RT 58
was used and for the experiments with heat
transfer enhancement methods, paraffin RT 60
Fig. 3. Experimental setup.
R. Velraj et al.
was used. Both paraffin have the same ther-
mophysical properties except for the phase change
temperature. RT 60 has a phase change tempera-
ture range of 58 to 608C and RT 58 has a phase
change range of 58 to 598C. Table 1 summarizes
the thermophysical properties of paraffin RT 58
and RT 60.
3.2. Experimental procedure
Several experimental runs were performed to
find the temperature distribution within the paraf-
fin during solidification. Initially the experiments
were performed without fins (plain tube configu-
ration) as detailed below. Subsequently, experi-
ments were conducted for the heat transfer en-
hancement configurations, following the similar
procedure.
The temperature of the water was maintained at
Table 1. Thermophysical properties of paraffin RT 60 and RT
58 (from manufacturer’s a data)
Property Value
Latent heat of fusion 214.4 kJ kg 21
Specific heat capacity 900 J kg 21 K 21
Thermal conductivity 0.2 W m 21 K 21
Density
Solid 850 kg m 23
Liquid 775 kg m 23
a
Manufacturer address: Hans-Otto Schuemann GmbH & Co
KG, Worthdamm 13–27, D-2000, Hamburg, FRG.
 Heat transfer enhancement in a latent heat storage system
a constant value, slightly above the solidification
temperature through a thermostat control till the
entire PCM region attained thermal equilibrium
with the surrounding. The temperature of the
water was lowered suddenly to a temperature
below the solidification temperature and main-
tained at a constant value. This was achieved by
removing part of the water from the surrounding
water bath and adding cold water. Due to the
presence of the magnetic stirrer at the bottom, a
nearly uniform temperature was achieved within a
short time. This is confirmed from the readings of
the thermocouples located at three different
heights in the water bath. The total time lag
between the removal of water from the bath and
the attainment of nearly uniform temperature was
approximately 3 to 4 min.
The thermostat is then set to the new surround-
ing water temperature and the recorder was also
switched on. The water bath was maintained at a
constant temperature (within a range of 60.28C)
throughout the experiment by thermostat control.
The transfer of fusion heat from the PCM in-
creases the temperature of the surrounding water.
The mass flow rate of the water is hence varied
and kept at just sufficient value to maintain a
constant temperature during the process. During
the initial stage, a slightly higher flow of about 10
to 15 kg h 21 was required to prevent the tempera-
ture from rising. This is due to a larger amount of
heat transferred from the PCM to the surrounding
coolant during the initial stages of the process.
Subsequently, a flow of only about 2 kg h 21 was
required. As the solidification proceeds, the tem-
perature vs time readings were recorded and
monitored. The experimental readings were ob-
tained till all the thermocouples showed tempera-
tures well below the solidification temperature.
3.3. Determination of ‘ h’ using experiments on
plain tube configuration
Since the height of the paraffin-filled plain tube
is high and the rate of circulation of the water is
low, convection currents would occur on the
outside tube surface. Due to the presence of the
magnetic stirrer at the bottom of the vessel, an
expression to determine ‘h’ for this type of
agitating / circulating flow outside vertical surfaces
is not readily available. To obtain more accurate
results, the ‘h’ value is determined by conducting
experiments on the plain tube configuration, and
matching the results with the numerical model for
the same. For this and for all further theoretical
work, the numerical model developed by Velraj et
al. (1997) based on the enthalpy method is used.
This model which was originally developed for
175
Fig. 4. Experimental and simulated (with h 5 400 W m 22 K 21 )
temperature variation within the paraffin for the plain tube
configuration at the thermocouple locations shown in Fig. 1(a).
vertical internally finned tube configuration is
reduced for plain tube configuration by assuming
the fin thickness equal to zero. The model is
initially validated with the exact solution of
London and Seban (1943) for inward cylindrical
solidification. This is done by obtaining the
complete solidification time from the model and
comparing it with that obtained from the exact
solution for different sets of input parameters. The
results are in close agreement and the deviations
are within 62% for the selected grid size and
time step in the numerical model.
To estimate the value of ‘h’, the experimental
temperature variation was obtained for three
different thermocouple locations shown in Fig.
1(a). Repeated numerical runs were made by
varying the ‘h’ value in the model keeping all the
thermophysical properties of the paraffin at a
constant value, until close matching of the nu-
merically computed temperature profile with the
experimental results was obtained. Such numeri-
cal results obtained are referred to as simulated
results. The value of ‘h’ thus obtained was of the
order of 400 Wm 22 K 21 . This value of ‘h’ was
used in the computations involved with other heat
transfer enhancement methods. Fig. 4 shows the
experimental and simulated temperature variation
for the above value of ‘h’, at the locations of the
thermocouples shown in Fig. 1(a). The numerical
and simulated temperature variation are in close
agreement with each other.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 5 shows the experimental and predicted
temperature variation within the paraffin for the
fin configuration at the locations of the ther-
mocouples shown in Fig. 1(b). The predicted
temperature variation at the above locations is
176
Fig. 5. Experimental and predicted temperature variation within the paraffin for the tube with fin at four thermocouple locations
shown in Fig. 1(b).
obtained from the numerical model. The theoret-
ical and the experimental curves are in rather
close agreement with each other, except that in
the theoretical curves, the rate of temperature drop
is slower during phase change and faster after
phase change is completed at any location where-
as in the experimental curves, there is not much
change in the rate of temperature drop even after
the lower limit of the phase change temperature
range is reached. This could be due to the
solidified paraffin, that may still have some
amount of latent heat even after the lower limit of
the phase change temperature range is reached.
This implies that the phase transition temperature
range is actually wider than that specified by the
manufacturer. This fact has also been observed by
Abhat (1983) for most of the paraffin. However,
the major phase change takes place within the
specified temperature range. This shift of a small
amount of latent heat for a short range below the
lower limit of the phase change temperature range
is also useful from the application point of view.
This reduces the sub-cooling of the solidified
layer and makes it possible to extract the energy
at nearly constant temperature even during the
solidification of the paraffin at the center of the
R. Velraj et al.
region between the adjacent fins. Further, in the
theoretical case, the initial temperature was fixed
at 60.58C for the entire domain, whereas it can be
observed from Fig. 5 that in the experiments the
initial temperatures could only be maintained at
60.560.38C. However, as soon as the temperature
of the water bath is lowered, the whole region
attains the temperature of saturated liquid.
It is also seen from the above figure that
initially the temperature drop is faster at ther-
mocouple location 2 than in location 1 and vice
versa after a certain interval of time. This could
be because location 2 is more closer to the fin and
this fin conduction is more pronounced initially.
Later, the corner effect (cooling effect from the
fin and the boundary wall) predominates at loca-
tion 1 and this results in a faster drop in tempera-
ture. This kind of temperature variation is ob-
served both in the theoretical and experimental
curves. A similar corner effect is discussed by
Shamsundar and Sparrow (1975) for the case of a
square container.
The unique feature in the numerical model
(Velraj et al., 1997) is that it takes into account
the heat flow in the circumferential direction
along the tube wall. Initially, when the numerical
 Heat transfer enhancement in a latent heat storage system
trials were done without taking into account the
circumferential heat flow from the fin tip to the
wall, more time was taken to lower the fin
temperature. Consequently, the time for complete
solidification was much higher than the ex-
perimental value. When the above circumferential
heat flow is taken into account, it is observed that
approximately 80% of the total heat flow from the
fin is through this path. This is because the
convective surface area at the fin tip is not
sufficient to pass away all the heat from the fin
directly into the surrounding fluid.
Fig. 6 shows both the experimental and simu-
lated temperature distribution within the paraffin
for the enhancement technique employing paraf-
fin-lessing ring mixture at the thermocouple loca-
tions shown in Fig. 1(c). The numerical model for
the plain tube configuration was used to find the
effective thermal conductivity, k e , for this heat
transfer enhancement method. For this method,
the experimental temperature–time variation ob-
tained from three different thermocouple locations
was used as a base (standard). The value of k e
was varied by trial and error in the numerical
model until close matching of the predicted
temperature profile with the experimental results
was obtained. The value of c p was obtained by
mixture rule and was used in the energy equation.
Since the paraffin occupies only 80% of the total
volume, the corresponding reduction in amount of
latent heat per unit of the total volume is taken
into account in the energy equation by assuming
the value of the density of the paraffin as 80% of
its actual value. The value of k e thus obtained was
2 Wm 21 K 21 which is ten times greater than the
‘k’ of paraffin. Hence, the thermal conductivity
enhancement factor which is defined as the ratio
Fig. 6. Experimental and simulated (with k e 5 2 W m 21 K 21 )
temperature variation within the paraffin for the tube with
lessing rings at three thermocouple locations shown in Fig.
1(c).
177
of k e obtained with lessing rings to that of the
paraffin, is ten for this configuration. This en-
hancement is achieved with a loss of 20% volume
of paraffin for the particular tube diameter of 5.4
cm and lessing ring diameter of 1 cm. The
increase in effective thermal conductivity depends
on the ratio of the diameter of the tube and the
dimensions of the ring and it is well known that
for larger tube diameter this enhancement is much
higher.
Fig. 7 shows the experimental temperature
distribution within the paraffin for the case em-
ploying bubble agitation at the thermocouple
locations shown in Fig. 1(d). It is found that there
is not much increase in heat transfer during
solidification. Though the movement of bubbles
induces convection during melting, the vapor
pocket or cavity entrapped within the solid paraf-
fin during solidification reduces the conduction
heat transfer as the vapor is a poor conductor of
heat. Initially when the temperature of the PCM is
above saturation temperature, the water is present
in vapor form. During solidification the water
condenses and since it is denser than paraffin, it
slides down over the solidified paraffin. When this
water comes in contact with the interior paraffin
which is at a higher temperature, again it evapo-
rates and forms steam bubbles which tend to raise
up. This water condensing and bubble formation
takes place alternately throughout the solidifica-
tion process. During this process some steam
bubbles may get entrapped within the solidified
paraffin and will affect the conduction heat trans-
fer. However from melting experiments conducted
(not reported in the present work), it was observed
that the increase in heat transfer during melting is
appreciable, which may be suitable for some
waste heat recovery applications where the pro-
Fig. 7. Experimental temperature variation within the paraffin
for the tube with enhancement through bubble agitation at
three thermocouple locations shown in Fig. 1(d).
178
cess is not continuous and large quantity of heat
should be stored in a short period. This bubble
formation was observed by conducting the initial
experiments with glass tube instead of aluminium
tube. Since there was no remarkable augmentation
effect on solidification and also due to the com-
plexities of the process, further analysis was not
attempted.
Fig. 8 shows the time for complete solidifica-
tion (obtained from the numerical model) of the
paraffin with the surrounding water bath tempera-
ture at 508C for the plain tube and for the two
heat transfer enhancement configurations shown
in Fig. 1(b) and (c). These results are obtained
from the numerical model, since experimentally it
is difficult to determine the portion of the PCM
which solidifies at the end, and place the ther-
mocouple in the appropriate location, especially
for the fin configuration. The fins occupy 7% of
the tube volume and it is seen from the figure, that
the time for complete solidification is approxi-
mately one-fourth that of the plain tube. In the
other method the lessing rings occupy 20% of the
tube volume and the time for complete solidifica-
tion is nearly one-ninth that of the plain tube.
Comparing the volume occupied by the fins and
the lessing rings, the latter occupy more volume
Fig. 8. Comparison of total solidification time and total quantity of heat stored for different configuration.
R. Velraj et al.
without proportionate reduction in time for com-
plete solidification. However, the time factor
which is defined as the ratio of time for complete
solidification with heat transfer enhancement to
that of plain tube configuration, depends on the
diameter of the tube for the lessing ring configura-
tion. The time factor in this case decreases with
increase in diameter of the tube. With the fin
configuration, it was observed from the numerical
runs that the time factor remains more or less
unchanged for a fixed number of fins irrespective
of the diameter of the tube. The figure also shows
the heat stored which represents the amount of
latent heat that can be stored per unit meter length
in a tube with 5.4-cm inner diameter with paraffin
RT 60 as PCM. In the plain tube configuration
490 kJ of energy can be stored per meter tube
length and with fins and lessing ring configura-
tions the reduction in energy stored is 7 and 20%
respectively.
In a LHTS system the total resistance to the
heat flow is the sum of convective resistance on
the tube surface and the conductive resistance of
solidified PCM. During the extraction of heat
from the system, as the solidification proceeds,
the conductive resistance offered by the PCM
increases whereas the convective resistance is
 Heat transfer enhancement in a latent heat storage system
constant throughout the process for a given flow
condition. Hence the variation of surface heat flux
depends on the predominance of the convective
resistance (fixed resistance) and the conductive
resistance (variable resistance). When the convec-
tive resistance is dominant nearly uniform surface
heat flux with time can be achieved from the
LHTS system and if the conductive resistance is
dominant the surface heat flux will have a de-
creasing trend with respect to time. In a LHTS
system when water is the heat transfer fluid, the
convective resistance is less and the variable
conductive resistance offered by the PCM be-
comes dominant during the process and hence it is
very difficult to achieve a uniform surface heat
flux. The surface heat flux variations with water
as heat transfer fluid has been discussed by Velraj
et al. (1997). However, when air is the heat
transfer fluid, nearly uniform surface heat flux can
be achieved as the surface convective resistance is
high compared to the variable conductive resist-
ance. Based on the above observation the follow-
ing configurations are suggested for water heating
and air heating applications.
For domestic solar hot water applications, when
used as single LHTS unit, the surface heat flux
will not be uniform. Therefore a combined sens-
ible and latent heat storage system with a inner-
finned tube configuration such as that shown in
Fig. 9 is recommended. This type of storage
system utilizes the advantages of both sensible
and latent heat storage systems. For domestic
water heating, the hot water may be required at a
higher rate for a short duration and this require-
ment can be met by the sensible heat of the water
in the storage tank. Before the next usage, the
water in the tank is allowed to heat up again by
slow extraction of latent heat from the PCM.
Thereby the problem of nonuniform heat flux
during the withdrawal of heat from the LHTS
system is minimized
Fig. 9. Latent heat storage system for solar thermal applica-
tions.
179
For air heating applications, since more or less
uniform heat flux can be achieved as discussed
above, the LHTS system can be used as a single
large module and the performance of the unit can
be improved by increasing the effective thermal
conductivity of the PCM by the addition of high
conductivity material like lessing rings into the
PCM. The addition of high conductivity material
increases the surface heat flux and also more
uniform surface heat flux can be achieved as the
maximum conductive resistance (variable resist-
ance) gets reduced.
5. CONCLUSION
A detailed investigation of the different heat
transfer enhancement methods for the latent heat
thermal storage system has been carried out. The
heat transfer enhancement with fin configuration
for storage tubes and by using lessing rings in
storage tanks is appreciable, and these two meth-
ods are highly suitable for solidification enhance-
ment. The storage configuration employing bub-
ble agitation may be suitable for applications
where heat transfer enhancement for melting is
required. Though the two LHTS systems sug-
gested are technically feasible, their commerciali-
zation requires an economical analysis. Ongoing
research and close cooperation with industry will
bring the LHTS system more simple and cost-
effective in the near future for many applications.
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