The influence of geometrical parameters on the ice formation enhancement in a shell and double coil ice storage system

Abstract

Nowadays electrical power is one of the most vital requirements for daily life and industries. Since with the rise of the human population, providing electrical energy is an important challenge, some methods should be used to reduce the electrical demand or shift the demand from peak-hours to off-peak hours. Ice storage systems are one of the devices which can be used for this purpose. In this article, a transient 3D numerical simulation was carried out to investigate the effects of two geometrical parameters of double helical coil heat exchanger in the charging process of an ice storage system with the volume of 15 L. These parameters were helical coil pitch length and the distance between inner and outer coils. The results indicated that with higher values for pitch length and inner and outer coils distance, compared to smallest values for these parameters, the distribution of formed ice in the storage improves and the rate of ice formation increases by 22.81% and 13.99%, respectively. Increasing these values can also retard the ice block formation which is an undesirable phenomenon in the external discharge process of the ice storage systems.