Abstract
This paper has dealt with heat energy release characteristics of a fluidized bed-type cylindrical heat energy storage vessel packed with shape-stabilized latent heat paraffin pellets. This type of latent heat energy storage material consisted of normal paraffin (pentacosane C_<25>H_<52>, latent heat: 164kJ/kg, melting point of 327.2K) as a latent heat material, and polyethylene as a shape-stabilizing material. The effects of inlet cold air temperature and air flow rate, and the amount of heat energy storage paraffin pallets on the outlet air temperature from the heat energy storage vessel and the completion time of the heat energy release process were investigated. As a result, the non-dimensional correlations for the outlet air temperature from the heat energy storage vessel and the completion time of the heat energy release process were expressed in terms of non-dimensional pumping power, Stefan number and ratio of the height of the paraffin pellets layer to the diameter of the cylindrical heat energy storage vessel.
