Showing papers by "Frank Bruno published in 2012"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reviewed concentrated solar thermal power plants that are currently operating and under construction and provided the necessary information for further research in the development of cost-effective high temperature phase change thermal storage systems.
Abstract: Designing a cost-effective phase change thermal storage system involves two challenging aspects: one is to select a suitable storage material and the other is to increase the heat transfer between the storage material and the heat transfer fluid as the performance of the system is limited by the poor thermal conductivity of the latent heat storage material. When used for storing energy in concentrated solar thermal power plants, the solar field operation temperature will determine the PCM melting temperature selection. This paper reviews concentrated solar thermal power plants that are currently operating and under construction. It also reviews phase change materials with melting temperatures above 300 °C, which potentially can be used as energy storage media in these plants. In addition, various techniques employed to enhance the thermal performance of high temperature phase change thermal storage systems have been reviewed and discussed. This review aims to provide the necessary information for further research in the development of cost-effective high temperature phase change thermal storage systems.
669 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a simplified mathematical representation has been developed using the e-NTU technique for a cylindrical tank filled with phase change material (PCM), with heat transfer fluid flowing through tubes inside the tank.
156 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an innovative refrigeration system incorporating phase change material (PCM) is proposed to maintain refrigerated trucks at the desired thermal conditions, where the PCM is discharged and provides cooling when in service.
146 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an experimental investigation carried out on a tube-in-tank design filled with phase change materials (PCM) for cold storage applications is presented. And the average heat exchange effectiveness of the storage tank was determined and a characteristic design curve has been developed as a function of the measured average NTU.
127 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model for tubes in a phase change thermal energy storage system has been developed and validated with experimental results, which can accurately predict the behavior of the thermal storage system during charging and discharging.
103 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the useful latent energy that can be stored within a tube-in-tank phase change thermal energy storage system with particular reference to off peak thermal storage applications for cooling buildings.
93 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an experimental validation for a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and an effectiveness-number of transfer units (e-NTU) model for tubes in a large phase change material (PCM) tank has been conducted.
65 citations
TL;DR: The applicability of the effectiveness-NTU method for characterising a PCM thermal energy storage system was experimentally investigated in this article, where the system consisted of PCM encapsulated in spheres with a liquid heat transfer fluid.
59 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a new performance parameter for PCM thermal storage systems, the energy storage effectiveness, is defined, which can be used to optimise the design of any PCM-based thermal storage system to maximize the use of the thermal storage media.
56 citations
TL;DR: The study demonstrated that for air based systems phase change can be represented in one-dimension, however for liquid based systems two-dimensional phase change needs to be considered.
52 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a single phase change material (PCM) sphere was used for thermal energy storage (TES) in a TES system and the thermal performance of plain plastic sphere containing PCM has been compared to plastic sphere encapsulated with conducting pins.
Abstract: The utilisation of phase change material (PCM) for thermal energy storage (TES) can significantly enhance the energy savings achievable with renewable thermal systems. Sphere based packed bed systems have been used as TES for many years. However, due to the thermal resistance within these systems, the heat transfer is limited and not all the PCM can be used effectively. This study focuses on heat transfer enhancement options for single PCM sphere in a TES system. An experimental investigation has been conducted using water as the PCM. The thermal performance of plain plastic sphere containing PCM has been compared to plastic sphere encapsulated with conducting pins. The heat transfer rate of the sphere with conducting pins was more than 34% that of the sphere without pins.