Thermodynamics of heat storage in a PCM shell-and-tube heat exchanger in parallel or in series with a heat engine

This paper addresses the thermodynamics of heat storage ina PCM shell-and-tube heat exchanger, which in a solar power plant is provided to damp the pulsed behaviour of the heat source. Unequal duration of the active and passive phases of the heat source, and consequently of the heat storage and discharge, is allowed. Two alternative schemes of connection of the storage element to the heat engine, referred to as the series and the parallel set-ups, are considered. Using the general framework developed in our previous work, we reformulate the second-law efficiencies for each scheme in terms of a few dimensionless parameters, reflecting the operating conditions of the system and the relevant heat-transfer characteristics of the storage element. For the particular storage system studied in this paper, i.e. the PCM shell-and-tube heat exchanger executing periodic storage-removal cycles, the latter characteristics are determined numerically. A parametric study is conducted to compare the series and parallel schemes with regard to various design objectives. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.