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Article history: Packed beds serve as thermal energy storages (TES) and heat exchangers (HEX) in different technological
Received 7 April 2014 applications. In this paper, a general heterogeneous model of heat transfer in packed beds is developed. It
Accepted 20 July 2014 is implemented by lumped element formulation in object-oriented modeling language Modelica and is
Available online 29 July 2014
successful validated with data sets taken from two different experiments reported in literature.
The main advantages of the introduced model are the general, theory-based approach and the lumped
Keywords:
element formulation in Modelica. The rst point mentioned above should allow to simulate a packed bed
Thermal energy storage
TES/HEX without the necessity applying measured data for model calibration or to apply specic heat
Packed bed
Object-oriented modeling
transfer correlations with restricted application. The second point establishes the possibility to integrate
Modelica the TES/HEX model within plant models of larger scale without increasing the simulation time
System model drastically.
Lumped element model 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction integration into the energy system or the industrial plant under
investigation. Sensible heat storage is still dominating in practical
Fixed packed beds are of high importance in technology. There applications of high-temperature thermal energy storage (TES).
are manifold applications of packed beds in reactors, dryers, lters, However, signicant research is also done on packed bed TES
grate furnaces, and many more apparatuses. Packed beds play also a applying phase change material (PCM). Oro et al. [2] investigated
prominent role as heat exchangers and thermal energy storages. different numerical models of packed bed TES with PCM. They
This paper deals with the modeling of packed beds as thermal compared also several correlations for the convective heat transfer
energy storage, which are of interest as energy storages facilities in between heat transfer uid and PCM capsules. In order to stabilize
concentrating solar power (CSP), compressed air energy storages the outow temperature Zanganeh et al. [3] propose to add a
(CAES), and also in high-temperature industrial processes. A review relative small layer with PCM on the top of a packed bed of rocks.
of thermal energy storages in combination with CSP has been done Design considerations for packed bed TES are derived by means of
by Kuravi et al. [1]. Several authors also worked on the modeling of exergy analysis. Bindra et al. [4] emphasize the effect of axial
packed bed thermal energy storages, whereby modeling shall dispersion and heat losses through the wall on exergy recovery. By
support the design of the thermal energy storage and also its the same authors further [5] the trade-off between thermal exergy
losses and exergy losses through pressure loss is investigated. To
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 49 781 205 302.
improve the exergy recovery the authors propose to add multiple
E-mail address: orian.opitz@hs-offenburg.de (F. Opitz). inlets and outlets which shall be employed according to the actual
1
URL: www.hs-offenburg.de. temperature prole.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2014.07.057
1359-4311/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
246 F. Opitz, P. Trefnger / Applied Thermal Engineering 73 (2014) 245e252
In general, the different modeling approaches can be distin- However, a relative similar arrangement is the packed bed applied
guished between the pseudohomogeneous model and the hetero- in a CSP plant with air as heat transfer uid. Having said this, there
geneous model of packed beds. The pseudohomogeneous model are two main requirements on the model. Firstly, the sub models
treats the packed bed as one continuous phase. Consequently, there for heat transfer, etc. in the model should be general valid to make
is only one temperature for solid and uid phase. Pseudohomoge- the model also applicable with signicant different parameters.
neous models give reasonable results for many industrial applica- Secondly, the model should be applicable with respect to simula-
tions in steady-state operation. Heterogeneous models treat the tion time as part of the system model of a larger system.
solid and the uid phase separately. Thus, a temperature and a
concentration gradient between solid and uid phase can be 2. Modeling of packed beds
dened. In transient operation, as it is the case for thermal energy
storages, a heterogeneous model is required. Most of the presented papers, dealing with the modeling of
Several authors have investigated the application of packed beds sensible TES, use a set of partial differential equations (PDE,
as thermal energy storage for CSP. Zavattoni et al. [6] developed a distributed system) and solve it by application of different nu-
three-dimensional computational uid dynamics model and vali- merical methods. In case of the analysis of more complex systems,
dated it succesfully by means of data of a technical scale reactor. e.g. complete power plants or industrial plants, the use of a lumped
Anderson et al. [7] developed a heterogeneous model which was element model seems to be more suitable, since here ordinary
applied to alumina packed bed with hot air as uid whereby Biot differential equations (ODE) are used. In these bigger models the
numbers Bi have been small. They point out that appropriate uid governing equations of several different components have to be
property models which take temperature dependencies into ac- evaluated, which scales up the computational effort for solving
count and appropriate heat transfer model are required to achieve distributed systems. Thus the evaluation of ODE is advantageous
good agreement with experimental data. Also Modi and Pe rez- over the evaluation of PDE. The object-oriented programming
Segarra [8] proposed a one-dimensional model for a thermocline language Modelica offers a capability to solve a system of different
thermal storage system to be applied within a CSP plant. With lumped models connected to each other [9].
respect to prior modeling efforts they considered e.g. temperature- According to the lumped element approach, the model is
dependent properties of the heat transfer uid and heat losses to divided into n equally spaced layers (Fig. 1). Every layer has the
the ambient. They report a good agreement of simulation results same volume Vi V/n and is further subdivided into different
with experimental data. phases and zones (see sections 2.1 and 2.2).
Several authors state that a key issue is selecting an appropriate
model for the heat transfer between the solid and the uid phase. 2.1. Modeling approaches
The intention of this paper is to develop a model, which is suitable
for system analysis of complete energy systems, namely for steel- The TES under consideration consists of a packed bed of metal
making processes. However, no experimental data are available to ller material; the packing materials of the TES used for validation
validate the thermal energy storage in this particular process. is crushed steatite [10], respectively steel [11]. The heat transfer
F. Opitz, P. Trefnger / Applied Thermal Engineering 73 (2014) 245e252 247
wall have to be determined. In both cases only the wall zone 2 Parameter Experiment 1 [10] Experiment 2 [11]
participates in the heat transfer between the phase and the wall. Solid material Steatite Steel
Due to the low consideration of the heterogeneous model in liter- Heat transfer uid Air Combustion gas
ature this separate transport parameters aren't accurately known D/m 0.148 0.09
yet [14]. Nevertheless Hein [13] recommends the usage of the d/m 0.02 0.0095
H/m 1.2 0.215
correlations found by Dixon and Cresswell [19]:
tcharge/s 4800 20
30 0.40 0.44
0:06
Nufw;i Pr Re0:75 (15) 31 0.36 0.42
0:52 f ;i bed;i
Gin/kg s1 m2 0.225 240
Tamb/K 298 308
and Tin/K 823 312e357
rs/kg m3 2680 7850
D=2 ks/W m1 K1 2.5 52
Bisw;i 2:12 (16) cp,s/J kg1 K1 1068 500
d n 42 43
According to Ha nchen, Brckner & Steinfeld [10] the coefcient
of heat transfer outside the wall houtside is calculated by a correla-
(M1) The general model described above (section 3) with zonal
tion for heat transfer by free convection at vertical surfaces given by
division, heat conduction and usage of the correlation by
Kast & Klan [31].
Coutier & Farber [24] for heat transfer coefcient hfs.
(M2) Model M1, but application of the correlation by Gnielinski
3.3. Thermal conduction in solid phase
[26] and the introduced Bi-correction (Equation (12)).
(M3) Model M2 without Bi-correction
Tsotsas [12] shows that thermal conduction in solid phase can't
be neglected for low Peclet numbers Pe0 < 100.
The rst two model congurations are validated with data,
Applying too simple models (so called standard model) would nchen, Brckner & Steinfeld [10], the third model
published by Ha
favor misinterpretations in correlating the experimental data and
with data by Srinivasan & Raghunandan [11]. For both cases all
would lead to strongly diverging heat transfer parameters between
boundary conditions are taken from the cited papers of the
different experimental studies. As low Peclet numbers occur in the
research groups (see Table 1). If initial conditions aren't given
experiments under consideration, relevant radial and axial con-
explicitly, they are read out from reported diagrams. Further ad-
duction terms are included in the energy Equation (4). In lumped
justments to the model aren't undertaken. Regarding geometric
element modeling, axial conduction can be considered by
conguration, thermophysical properties and mode of operation,
the two test cases differ strongly. The rst experiment is a packed
A 1 3
Q_ s;ax;i kbed;i i Ts;i Ts;i1 (17) bed of rocks, which is charged for 4800 s by air at a constant mass
Hi
ow rate and at a constant inlet temperature. This unit is used as
and radial conduction by pilot-scale experimental set-up in CSP technology. On the other
hand, the second experiment is a packed bed of steel spheres, used
2 p r1 Hi 1 3 in ball bearings. This TES is charged for 20 s by a combustion gas
Q_ s;rad;i kbed;0;i Ts;1 Ts;2 : (18) with time-varying inlet temperature. This unit is used as a compact
D=2
heat exchanger for different applications. The main parameters of
the two experiments are given in Table 1.
3.4. Thermophysical properties of the two materials
The simulation results and experimental measured values are
compared by means of a global mean percentage error' (MPE),
The present model is validated with data from two quite
which gives the average relative error of a test series. For this, the
different experiments. In both cases the thermophysical properties
relative differences between simulation and experiment are sum-
of the solid phase material are assumed to be constant. The used
med up and averaged by the number of observations. The calcu-
typical values are given in Table 1 according to the experiments of
lation of MPE is given in Equation (19).
Hanchen, Brckner & Steinfeld [10] and Srinivasan & Raghunandan
[11].
Due to its high temperature differences in TES applications, air is
100 Xm
Mj Sj
modeled as an ideal mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon-dioxide MPE $ (19)
m j1 Mj
and argon, dependent on temperature. The specic heat capacity
cp,f and enthalpy hf of the mixture gases are calculated by VDI-
guideline 4670 [32]. The dynamic viscosities hf are calculated by 4.1. Validation of model M1
polynomial equations [33] and thermal conductivities kf by inter-
polation of values given in VDI heat atlas [33]. Accordingly, any The rst model M1 is validated using data published by
other mixture of gases can be described by this approach. Hanchen, Brckner & Steinfeld [10]. There, the correlation of
Coutier & Farber is used for calculation of heat transfer coefcient
4. Simulation results, validation and discussion hfs between the two phases. This correlation was determined at a
packed bed of rocks, which is quite similar to the experimental
As mentioned before the aim of this work is the development of setup of Hanchen, Brckner & Steinfeld. For example, the following
a general model which is applicable to different storage congu- parameters of the two experiments are comparable: Bed height H
rations. In the following, simulation results of three different pa- (1.2 m vs. 0.84 m), particle size d (0.02 m vs. (0.0180.030)m) and
rametrizations are compared to literature data to validate the mass ow rate per unit cross section G (0.225 kg s1 m2 vs. (0.02
general model developed before. The tested congurations are: 4)kg s1 m2).
250 F. Opitz, P. Trefnger / Applied Thermal Engineering 73 (2014) 245e252
Table 2
MPE of model M1.
t/s MPE/%
Core Mix
values lying between the simulated values for the two phases are
reasonable.
As can be seen in the gures, the core temperatures (Fig. 3)
compare better to the measured values than the mixing tempera-
tures (Fig. 4). This nding is supported by Table 2: At any time, the
mean average error MPE of the core temperatures is less than the
MPE of the mixing temperatures. Obviously there is a difference
between the temperatures in the core and the wall zone. In the
present model the effect of bypass ow, observed by Ha nchen,
Brckner & Steinfeld, is taken into account by the zonal model of
Martin. Consequently a correction of the mass ow rate, suggested
by the authors to t the measured temperatures, isn't necessary
here.
Fig. 3. Core uid and solid temperatures of simulation M1 compared to literature data Model M2 is validated with the previous data of Ha nchen,
[10]. Brckner & Steinfeld, too. Compared to M1 the more general cor-
relation for heat transfer of Gnielinski is used instead of the very
specic correlation of Coutier & Farber. Because the Biot number of
Figs. 3 and 4 show the simulation results obtained with model the rock material is Bi p> 0.1, the introduced Bi correction is needed
M1. In Fig. 3 the distribution of uid and solid core temperatures additionally. Fig. 5 shows the simulation result of model M2. Again,
over the bed height for three different charging times are plotted. the core temperatures of both phases are plotted. Due to similar
Additionally Fig. 4 shows the uid and solid temperatures, behavior as in simulation M1, the mixing temperatures aren't
assuming mixing between the two zones. Because the measured shown here again. Analogous to the previous simulation, the MPE
temperatures can't be assigned clearly to one phase, experimental at all times are given in Table 3.
Fig. 5. Core uid and solid temperatures of simulation M2 compared to literature data
Fig. 4. Mixing temperatures of simulation M1 compared to literature data [10]. [10].
F. Opitz, P. Trefnger / Applied Thermal Engineering 73 (2014) 245e252 251
Table 3
MPE of model M2.
t/s MPE/%
Core Mix