A porous medium based heat transfer and fluid flow model for thermal energy storage in packed rock beds

[摘要] Thermal energy storage in packed rock beds helps to reduce energy costs and carbon footprint's on an industrial, commercial and residential scale. Fluid flow and heat transfer in large-size packed rock beds used in mining applications such as heating/cooling of mine intake air or ventilation of block-caved mines have recently received significant attention. Understanding the porous structure of such packed rock beds is a necessity in the design of such systems. The pressure drop across a rock bed directly affects its heat exchange performance, as it requires additional fan power to circulate air during periods of storage/extraction. In this study, the fluid flow behavior inside a packed rock bed thermal energy storage system is investigated by developing a computational fluid dynamics model and a heat transfer model. The model offers useful information for evaluating the performance of rock beds packed with large rocks or in caved zones. Finally, the main goal of this study is to perform a practical energy saving analysis for porous media composed of large particles by changing the physical properties of the porous medium, such as porosity and permeability. The findings of this study also show that while the total thermal energy storage capacity of the system is not significantly affected by the mass flow rate, a lower mass flow rate can provide a longer working period for thermal energy storage systems.

[发布机构] Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Frank Dawson Adam Bldg., 3450 University, Montreal; QC; H3A0E8, Canada^1;Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, 517-6350 Stores Road, Vancouver, Canada^2

[效力级别] 生态环境科学 [学科分类] 环境科学（综合）

[关键词] Computational fluid dynamics modeling;Fluid flow and heat transfers;Heat exchange performance;Heat transfer and fluid flow;Heat transfer model;Porous structures;Practical energies;Thermal energy storage systems