Simulation of Heat Stratification in Thermal Energy Storage Tank Using Fluent

Heat is a major energy among the all energies which generates the power and used in all applications of human needs in case of transportation, household, domestic and power plants, etc. A water storage tank maintains the sensible heat transfer and is the best choice to heat addition in thermal energy systems. This type of tank has the advantages of low maintenance and high thermal conductivity. A moderate quantity of energy is utilized in heat storage tanks in cooling air conditioning and heating systems; they preserve the energy in the form of heat to utilize in the critical periods and high demands. The hot water from the collector tank with mantle heat exchanger is collected at bottom inlet portion of the tank and heat stratification arrives due to difference in temperature which gives rise of hot water to a weight variation in the different locations of water. This article presents the analysis of thermal stratification in heat exchange water tank by three-dimensional fluent analysis methods. Especially, this paper concentrates on both steady state and transient analysis. In this analysis, the steady state condition takes place at different inlet temperatures of mantle fluid and at different intervals of time were considered. A different outside drum size, by changing the inside drum material such as stainless steel, copper and inlet temperature of working fluid water will be used and compared with each other by using the Ansys fluent methods. It may be expected from its calculation that the validation of results with experimental data will have a good consistency. Results from the paper may guide the engineers to establish this type of heat energy storage tanks in heat integration and distributed systems. The effectiveness of the storage tanks was calculated.