Analysis of New Heat Exchanger Performance in Phase Change Energy Storage

Based on traditional shell-and-tubeheat exchanger, a new heat exchanger which applies to phase change thermal storage was proposed. The thermal storage process of new heat exchanger and shell-and-tube heat exchanger which use paraffin as phase change material and use water as heat-transfer fluid can be simulated by CFD software, respectively. The changes of liquid fraction and heat flux density along with time have been got by computer stimulation. It can be found that maximum heat flux of the new heat exchanger heating wall is 2.5 times than shell-and-tube heat exchanger, melting time of the new heat exchanger is 5 times than shell-and-tube heat exchanger. From the two aspects, the heat storage effect of new heat exchanger is better than conventional concentric tube heat exchanger.