Numerical Study of Convection Melting Inside Ice Storage Systems by the Lattice Boltzmann Model

Abstract

The internal melt ice-on-coil tank with horizontal pipes is widely used in ice storage systems. The tank’s discharge process is greatly affected by the natural convection process that is caused by melting of the phase change material outside the pipes. To achieve an optimal arrangement of the pipes, a double-population lattice Boltzmann model was developed to simulate the transient solid-liquid phase change behavior in a section of an internal-melt ice-on-coil thermal storage tank with nine aligned built-in horizontal pipes. The evolutions in the phase change interface and melting rate was illustrated with different pipe shapes and pipe connections. Based on the melting rate, the whole melting process was divided into three stages: sharp decrease stage, continuous decrease stage, and snail-melting stage. The numerical results showed that a high melting rate was obtained by preferentially assigning the high-temperature pipes to the upper part of the tank, while a stable melting rate could be obtained when high-temperature pipes were preferentially assigned to the bottom part of the tank.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 51678102, 51508067). The authors are grateful for the financial support from the two projects.

Notes on contributors

Qi Lin

Qi Lin is a Ph.D. student at Dalian University of Technology (DUT), Dalian, China, under the supervision of Prof. Shugang Wang. He received his B. Eng. degree in Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning from DUT, China. He is currently working on phase change mechanisms and heat transfer of a microencapsulated phase change material slurry flow.

Shugang Wang

Shugang Wang is a professor of Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He received his Ph.D. in Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering in 2003 from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. He is currently working on multiscale modeling of the heat and mass transfer enhancement in a high power density datacenter.

Jihong Wang

Jihong Wang is a lecturer of Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering at Dalian University of Technology (DUT). She received her B. Eng. degree and Ph.D. degree from DUT. She is currently working on the numerical modeling of multiphase flow dynamics and thermal environment.

Tengfei Zhang

Tengfei Zhang is a professor of Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He received his Ph.D. degree at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA. He is currently working on heat and moisture transfer in buildings.