Sand as a Heat Storage Media for a Solar Application: Simulation Results
Résumé
This paper deals with the numerical investigation of transient behavior and thermal storage capability of a sensible heat storage unit. The former has a cubic configuration with embedded charging tubes; it is used to store solar energy with sand as a storage media. The system operates in the range of low temperature. To analyze their heat storage characteristics (including the bed temperature, energy stored rate, charging energy efficiency), a finite element based 2-D mathematical model has been developed using COMSOL Multiphysics. The results show that sand has an important thermal inertia. However, it was interesting to develop these storage systems in the region where both sand and solar energy were plentiful.