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Research Article

CFD analysis of thermal stratification in domestic hot water storage tank during dynamic mode

Olfa Abdelhak1(), Hatem Mhiri1, Philippe Bournot2
Unité de Thermique et Thermodynamique des Procédés Industriels, Ecole Nationale, d’Ingénieurs de Monastir, route de Ouardanine,5020 Monastir, Tunisia
IUSTI, UMR CNRS 6595, 5 Rue Enrico Fermi, Technopôle de château-Gombert, 13013 Marseille, France
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Abstract

In this paper, the thermal behavior of a vertical domestic hot water storage tank during the dynamic mode was studied. A 3D computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model was performed using the commercial software package Fluent v6.3. The proposed model was validated with experimental data obtained from the literature. The results of the simulation served to analyze the flow characteristics and the thermal stratification evolution during charging and discharging phases. This study was further extended to explore the effect of varying tank position (horizontal/vertical) on the system performance. A numerical comparison between the two configurations was carried out and performance parameters such as discharge efficiency, Richardson number and stratification efficiency were calculated. A major finding of the above analysis was the presence of two regions of increased thermal mixing in the horizontal tank. The contribution of these two recirculation zones on the destruction of the thermal stratification resulting in a decrease of the overall performance was demonstrated.

Keywords

hot water storage tankthree dimensional numerical analysisthermal stratification

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Building Simulation
Volume 8 Issue 4,
August 2015
Pages 421-429
DOI: 10.1007/s12273-015-0216-9
Cite this article:
Abdelhak O, Mhiri H, Bournot P. CFD analysis of thermal stratification in domestic hot water storage tank during dynamic mode. Building Simulation, 2015, 8(4): 421-429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-015-0216-9
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