Abstract
The thermal storage tank is attracting the attention of engineer's for its importance in the economic design of air-conditioning systems. Many valuable studies on it have been reported in recent years. Most of these studies attempt to clarify its characteristics as a separate element. However it should be noted that the behavior of a certain device is substantially affected by the characteristics of the other parts of the system. This paper investigates the dynamic behavior of the thermal storage tank as an element within a larger system containing a cooling coil, refrigerator and control devices. A mathematical model of the system is non-dimensionalized and simulated on a digital computer. In non-dimensionalizing, we used only those parameters which are supposed to be given as design specifications. The behavior of the model was found qualitatively well acceptable. The so-called "efficiency of thermal storage" has been widely used in designing thermal storage tanks. This is based on the "design storage temperature" and "return temperature from the coil", but the method of estimating those two values is not yet firmly establised. This paper proposes some Characteristic Values which provide much valuable information on the system, especially its dynamic behavior and play an important role in the design procedure to be described in Part 2.