Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713 www.elsevier.

com/locate/apthermeng

Use of latent heat storage to conserve energy during drying and its eect on drying kinetics of a food product
Sakamon Devahastin *, Saovakhon Pitaksuriyarat
Department of Food Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology Thonburi, 91 Pracha u-tid Road, Bangkok 10140, Thailand Received 19 September 2005; accepted 11 November 2005 Available online 27 December 2005

Abstract The present study aimed at investigating the feasibility of using a latent heat storage (LHS) with paran wax as a phase change material (PCM) to store excess solar energy and release it when the energy availability is inadequate or not available. First, attention was given on the heat transfer characteristics of the PCM during the charge and discharge periods of the LHS. The eects of inlet hot air temperature in the range of 7090 C and inlet air velocities of 1 and 2 m s1 on the charge time were determined, while during the discharge period only the eect of inlet ambient air velocity was considered. The eect of the use of LHS on the drying kinetics of sweet potato and the ability of the LHS to conserve energy during drying of sweet potato were also determined. It was found that the drying rate of sweet potato increased with a decrease of the inlet ambient air velocity. The amount of the energy extractable from the LHS was 1920 and 1386 kJ min kg1 and the energy savings was 40% and 34% when using an inlet ambient air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, respectively. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Heat transfer; Paran wax; Phase change material; Solar dryer; Sweet potato; Thermal energy storage

1. Introduction Solar drying has recently received much attention, especially in tropical countries, since it is a process that requires low capital and operating costs and is also environmental friendly. However, since the availability of the solar energy, which is the main source of energy in solar drying, depends on the time of the day and varies in dierent seasons, supplementary energy is generally required in order to achieve a continuous drying operation; this requirement is indeed one of the major shortcomings of the solar drying system [4]. To alleviate this shortcoming the idea of using energy storage to store excess energy during the peak time and use it when the energy availability is inadequate is attractive. Amongst the various energy storage techniques of interest, latent heat storage is particularly attractive

Corresponding author. Tel.: +662 470 9246; fax: +662 470 9240. E-mail address: sakamon.dev@kmutt.ac.th (S. Devahastin).

because of its ability to provide a high energy storage density and its ability to store energy at a constant temperature corresponding to the phase transition temperature of the energy storage substance. The development of a latent heat storage system involves an understanding of two essential subjects: heat exchanger and thermal storage material. Studies have therefore been focused on the development of the heat exchanger congurations such as shell-and-tube, double pipe, plate or spherical shells and also on the phase change material. Esen et al. [5] studied an energy storage and release in shell-and-tube heat exchanger units. The results indicated that a shorter energy storage and release time upon charging and discharging the PCM existed on the shell side. Choi and Kim [2] investigated some approaches to improve heat transfer within an LHS by the use of nned tubes. The results showed that nned tubes increased the eective thermal conductivity of the phase change material due to the high thermal conductivity of the metal ns. These results are similar to those reported

1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2005.11.007

1706

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

by Lacroix [14]. Wadekar [18] found that the charge and discharge times were reduced considerably in the system of plate heat exchanger. However, the use of plate heat exchangers remains to be found only on a limited scale. A suitable PCM of an LHS should posses a melting point in the desired operating temperature range, high latent heat of fusion per unit mass so that lesser amount of material can store a given amount of energy, high density, high specic heat, high thermal conductivity, small volume change during phase transition, little or no supercooling eect and good chemical stability [1]. Sharma et al. [16] studied the changes in the melting point, latent heat of fusion and specic heat of PCMs such as stearic acid, acetamide and paran wax, both laboratory-grade and commercial-grade, after a repeated number of melting/freezing cycles. Stearic acid melted over a range of temperatures but was thermally stable. Acetamide and paran wax showed reasonably good stability throughout 300 melting/freezing cycles and could be considered as promising PCMs. Acetamide absorbed moisture from surrounding, however. As mentioned by Abhat [1], parans qualify as energy storage materials due to their availability in a large temperature range and their reasonably high heat of fusion. Furthermore, parans are known to freeze without any supercooling eect. A major drawback of parans is the low thermal conductivity. This problem is addressed through an increase of the surface area of heat transfer between the heat transfer uid (HTF) and the PCM. The use of nned tubes as well as metal ber and metal matrix, for example, resulted in an increase of one- to vefold of the eective thermal conductivity of the PCM and hence the rate of heat transfer [6]. Several research works investigated the heat transfer characteristics of PCMs in an LHS during melting and solidication [13,12,710]. Sari and Kaygusuz [15] studied the phase transition time, the phase change temperature and the propagation of the solidliquid interface in both radial and axial directions as well as the eect of the heat ow rate on the phase change stability of steric acid, which was used as the phase change energy storage material. They found that melting and solidication occurred from an upper and lower point in the axial direction, respectively. In the radial direction melting came about from a point closer to the HTF to a point far away from it while solidication was observed to be in the opposite direction. On the contrary, Sukhatme [17] and Ettouney et al. [6] reported that during the discharge period PCM rst solidied at the heat transfer surface. Furthermore, it was indicated that the temperature of HTF aected the charge and discharge times while the eect of the ow rate of HTF in the laminar
Table 1 Thermophysical properties of paran used in this study Density of liquid (kg m3) 786.14 Density of solid (kg m3) 833.60 Range of melting temperature (C) 3554

ow range did not have any eect on heat transfer in both periods. Similar results were reported by Yanadori and Masuda [19] and Sari and Kaygusuz [15]. However, Ettouney et al. [6] found that the eect of natural convection was negligible in melting process for the case of downward HTF ow and also during a solidication process. Very limited information is available regarding the use of latent heat storage to conserve thermal energy during drying. Devahastin et al. [3] proposed, via numerical simulation, the use of latent heat storage to store energy from the exhausted gas of a modied spouted bed grain dryer. A saving of up to 15% could be achieved with the use of such combination. The focus of the present study was to simulate the use of a latent heat storage (LHS) with paran wax as a phase change material (PCM) to store excess solar energy during the day time (by using hot air at temperatures close to those exhausted from a typical solar collector) and release it when the solar energy availability is inadequate or not available (by forcing ambient air through the energy storage to extract the stored energy), which implies a possibility of reducing the amount of supplementary energy required in the drying operation. In addition, the eect of the use of energy released from the LHS instead of supplying supplementary energy continuously on the drying kinetics of sweet potato, which was used as a model food product, was determined and discussed. 2. Experimental set-up, materials and methods 2.1. Experimental set-up A summary of the physical properties of paran wax used as a phase change material in the present study is given in Table 1. A schematic diagram of the melting/freezing experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 1. The set-up consists of an air

Air from compressed air line Globe valve Heater Flow meter

TC LHS vessel Temperature controller

Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of the melting/freezing experimental set-up.

Heat of fusion (kJ kg1) 196.05

Cp of liquid (kJ kg1 K1) 2.44

Cp of solid (kJ kg1 K1) 2.35

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

1707

compressor, a temperature controller, a heater and a latent heat storage (LHS) vessel. The LHS vessel consists of two main parts. The vessel itself is a cylindrical acrylic vessel with a diameter of 0.10 m and a height of 0.20 m. A tube through which heat transfer uid owed is a copper tube which is 1.27 102 m in diameter and is attached with 18 copper ns. Each n has a diameter of 0.08 m, a thickness of 5.0 103 m and the spacing between each n is 0.01 m. There is also a space (0.02 m) between the cover and the vessel body in order to allow the air to be released from the vessel during the volume expansion of PCM during the change of its phase from solid to liquid. The temperature proles of PCM in the LHS vessel during the charge and discharge periods were determined at 16 positions as shown in Fig. 2. The rst to the fourth points are along the outlet air tube at the edge of the copper ns. The fth to the eighth points stay between the inlet and outlet air tubes at the center. The ninth to the 12th points are along the inlet air tube and the 1316th are between the inlet and outlet air tube at the edge of the copper ns. A more detailed sketch of the LHS vessel is shown in Fig. 3. The non-insulated vessel was used to allow visualization of the melting/freezing processes. However, some runs were also performed with an insulated vessel to deter-

Fig. 3. A detailed sketch of the LHS vessel.

mine the eect of insulation on the melting/freezing processes. For the last part of the study a drying chamber was attached to the LHS vessel described earlier in order to study the eect of the use of an LHS to conserve energy during drying and also on the drying kinetics of a food product viz. sweet potato. The drying chamber that was attached to the LHS is constructed of galvanized steel and has a cross-section of 0.10 0.10 m2 and is insulated by berglass (see Fig. 4). 2.2. Methods 2.2.1. Charge period The charge cycle was started by circulating hot air, which had a temperature in the range of 7090 C (70, 80 and 90 C) through the copper tube to supply heat to PCM at dierent velocities (1 and 2 m s1, calculated based on the cross-section of the drying chamber). During this period the temperature of PCM at 16 positions were recorded at every 15 min interval. 2.2.2. Discharge period The LHS unit was fully charged before starting of each discharge cycle. Two velocities of inlet ambient air were used to extract energy, i.e., 1 and 2 m s1. Air temperature

Fig. 2. A schematic diagram of the temperature measuring positions in LHS. (a) Front view and (b) side view.

Air from compressed air line

Temperature sensor Flow meter Globe valve

Heater

.
Drying Chamber

TC Temperature controller LHS tank

Fig. 4. A schematic diagram of the experiment set-up with attached drying chamber.

1708

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

at the outlet of the LHS was recorded at every 15 min interval. 2.2.3. Eect of using LHS on drying kinetics of sweet potato Prior to drying sweet potato was peeled and cut into slices with diameter of 15 mm and thickness of 3 mm. Drying experiments were divided into two parts. In the rst part the drying kinetics of sweet potato were studied at a constant inlet air temperature of 60 C at an air velocity of either 1 or 2 m s1. In the second part an inlet air was heated only by the LHS, so an inlet air temperature was not constant; in this case ambient air was forced to ow through the fully charged LHS at velocity of either 1 or 2 m s1 before allowing it to enter the drying chamber. Drying was continued until the nal moisture content of sweet potato reached 15% (d.b.). During each experiment air temperature before entering into the drying chamber was recorded at every 5 min interval. 2.2.4. Calculation of extractable energy The extractable energy from the LHS during the discharge period can be calculated by the following equation under the assumption that there was no heat loss from the system. _ _ Q mC p;a DT 1 _ where Q is the rate of extractable energy from the LHS _ (kJ min1), m is the inlet ambient air ow rate (kg min1), Cp,a is the specic heat of air (kJ kg1 K) and DT is the difference between inlet and outlet air temperatures of the LHS (K). 2.2.5. Calculation of energy saving during drying due to the use of LHS An energy saving due to the use of the LHS can be calculated by the following equation: ES 100 2 E where E is total energy required for drying and S is the supplementary energy requirement. % Saving

3. Results and discussion 3.1. Eect of inlet air ow rate on the charge period The temperature proles of the PCM in the LHS were recorded and some selected results are shown in Fig. 5. Initially, the temperature of paran at points 5, 6, 7 and 8 increased more rapidly than the others because these points were located at the center of the vessel, which were closest to the heat source. However, the phase transition was still not obvious. After that the liquid layer was formed between the copper tube wall and the solid PCM and natural convection began to occur. Next, the temperature at points 1, 9 and 13, which were located at the top of the vessel started to increase and the PCM in this region began to melt. This is due to the eect of natural convection; the hotter melt always moved up to the top of the vessel and melting generally occurred rst in this part of the vessel. The result observed was in agreement with that of Guerrero et al. [11] who reported that the charge cycle is dominated by heat conduction and then followed by free convection. The isotherms of PCM across the center section of LHS during the charge cycle, which could be used to display the melting process in this storage unit, are shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the temperature along the center line of the LHS increased rst; the temperature of the top part of the vessel increased due to natural convection. In addition, the temperature of paran adjacent to the inlet air tube increased more rapidly than that adjacent to the outlet air tube since there was a higher temperature dierence near the inlet air tube. The result of this gure agreed with the temperature proles shown earlier. It was observed that there were some portions of PCM located at the bottom that did not melt. However, these portions were rather small and could be neglected. The charge time was dened as the time when the temperature at all positions did not any longer change within 1 C. The charge time at various conditions is shown in Table 2. It was found that the charge time decreased with an increase of the air temperature and air velocity. At higher inlet air temperature the heat transfer rate was

90 80
Temperature (oC)

70 60 50 40 30 20 0 30 60 90 120 150 Time (min) 180 210 240

Point 1 Point 2 Point 3 Point 4 Point 5 Point 6 Point 7 Point 8 Point 9 Point 10 Point 11 Point 12 Point 13 Point 14 Point 15 Point 16

Fig. 5. Temperature proles in LHS vessel during the charge cycle at inlet air temperature of 90 C and air velocity of 1 m s1.

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

1709

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

56 .8

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

Height (cm)

Height (cm)

65

5 4 .1

58

.7

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

62 5 8 .7 . 2

.6

69 .1

56.8

(a)

Radius (cm)

(b)

Radius (cm)

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

Height (cm)

Height (cm)

4 72.

65 .1

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

5 73.

.1 70

.8 68

66

.7

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

(c)

Radius (cm)

(d)

Radius (cm)

Fig. 6. Isotherms of PCM across the LHS vessel central section during the charge cycle at inlet air temperature of 90 C and air velocity of 1 m s1 at (a) 1 h, (b) 2 h, (c) 3 h and (d) 4 h.

Table 2 Charge time of LHS at various inlet air temperatures and air velocities Temperature (C) Charge time (min) v = 1 m s1 70 80 90
a b

3.2. Eect of inlet ambient air ow rate on discharge period The temperature evolution of the PCM during the discharge period and the temperature contours of the PCM during the discharge cycle are shown in Figs. 7 and 8, respectively. The temperature contours during the freezing process show a radial progression of the freezing front from the outer surface of the vessel to the air tube. As shown also in Fig. 8 the coldest zone was found near the outer surface of the LHS and the hottest zone was found near the copper tube. This unexpected result was due to the eect of heat loss through the vessel wall to the surrounding. Since the surface area of the vessel wall was much larger than the heat transfer area of the copper tube and ns, and since the driving forces for heat transfer were not much dierent between the PCMdischarge air pair

v = 2 m s1 300b 165 105

405a 285 165 PCM melted for only a quarter of LHS tank. PCM melted for only half of LHS tank.

higher because of an increase of the driving force for heat transfer. The eect of the charge temperature on the charge time was more pronounced at higher charge temperature due to stronger natural convection in the melt region. Higher air ow rate, in other words, higher heat transfer coecient, also helped reducing the charge time.
70 60
Temperature (C)

50 40 30 20 0 60 120 180 240 300 Time (min)

Point 1 Point 2 Point 3 Point 4 Point 5 Point 6 Point 7 Point 8 Point 9 Point 10 Point 11 Point 12 Point 13 Point 14 Point 15 Point 16

Fig. 7. Temperature proles in LHS vessel during the discharge cycle at inlet ambient air (30 C) and air velocity of 1 m s1.

1710

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

52.0

53.3

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

Height (cm)

54 53 .6 .3

Height (cm)

47. .4 4 48

45.6

.5 46

50.7

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

(a)

Radius (cm)
15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

(b)

Radius (cm)
15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

39.9

Height (cm)

Height (cm)

40. . 9 4 40

36

.6

4 40.

37. 5

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

(c)

Radius (cm)

(d)

Radius (cm)

Fig. 8. Isotherms of PCM across the LHS vessel central section during the discharge cycle at inlet ambient air temperature and air velocity of 1 m s1 at (a) 30 min, (b) 60 min, (c) 90 min and (d) 120 min.

and the PCMsurrounding pair, the direction of the freezing front was dierent from that expected. The discharge time was again dened as the time when the temperature at all positions did not any longer change within 1 C. Discharge time of the LHS at an air velocity of 1 m s1 was 180 min while it was 165 min at an inlet velocity of 2 m s1. The result indicated that air velocity did not aect much the discharge time since heat conduction was dominant during solidication.

In order to determine the eect of heat loss some experiments were conducted with an insulated vessel. It was found that the heat transfer direction during freezing in the insulated LHS was not the same as that in a non-insulated LHS as shown in Fig. 9. The temperature of PCM adjacent to the inlet air tube (ambient air) was lower than that far away from the tube, which was similar to the trend reported by Ettouney et al. [6]. Discharge time of the insulated LHS was longer than that of the non-insulated LHS,

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

(a)

Radius (cm)
15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

(b)

Radius (cm)
15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

Height (cm)

Height (cm)

43.1

4 39.

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

-4 -3 -2 -1 -0 1

(c)

Radius (cm)

(d)

Radius (cm)

Fig. 9. Isotherms of PCM across the insulated-LHS vessel central section during the discharge cycle at inlet ambient air temperature and air velocity of 1 m s1 at (a) 30 min, (b) 60 min, (c) 90 min and (d) 120 min.

49 .

54.7

15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

Height (cm)

55 . 54 5 .7

Height (cm)

48.4

49.8

49.1
49.8

53.0

8 53.

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

1711

as expected. The eect of heat conduction during solidication was obvious both in non-insulated and insulated LHS tanks due to the continuous decrease of the melt volume and smaller temperature gradients within the melt in the vertical direction. 3.3. Eect of inlet ambient air ow rate on extractable energy The eect of ambient air velocity on the extractable energy per unit mass ow rate of ambient air is shown in Fig. 10. The extractable energy decreased with the discharge time; the process stopped when there was no temperature dierence between the inlet air and the PCM. The amount of extractable energy of the LHS was 1920 and 1386 kJ min kg1 when using an inlet air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, respectively. 3.4. Eect of using LHS on drying kinetics of sweet potato The drying curves of sweet potato undergoing drying at dierent inlet air conditions are shown in Fig. 11. By using
25

a constant drying air temperature of 60 C and air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, the drying time was 100 and 70 min, respectively. This trend is, of course, expected. The trend was reversed, however, when drying was performed using air, which rstly passed (and extracted energy from) the LHS. In this case, the drying rate of sweet potato when using an inlet air velocity of 1 m s1 was higher than that when using an inlet air velocity of 2 m s1 as shown in Fig. 11. This is due to the fact that air at lower velocity had higher temperature since it could extract more energy from the LHS due to the longer time it had in the LHS and hence longer time to exchange heat with the PCM. In addition, it was observed that the drying rates were much lower after 180 and 165 min when using inlet air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, respectively; these time periods were the same as the discharge time of each respective condition. This is because all (or almost all) the energy in the LHS was extracted out. Therefore, beyond the discharge time a newly charged LHS should be used to help maintaining the drying rate. If the drying air temperature was to be xed (at 60 C) the energy required in the drying process per unit mass ow

mass flow rate of air (kJ kg-1)

Extractable energy per unit

20 15 10 5 0 0 30 60 90 Time (min) 120

v = 1 m/s v = 2 m/s

150

180

Fig. 10. Rate of extractable energy of LHS per unit mass ow rate of ambient air.

3
Moisture content (kg/kg, d.b.)

2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 50 100 150 200 Time (min)

T = 60 C, v = 2 m/s T = 60 C, v = 1 m/s T from LHS, v= 2 m/s T from LHS, v =1m/s

250

300

350

400

Fig. 11. Drying kinetics of sweet potato undergoing dierent inlet air conditions.

1712

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713

30
Specific supplementary -1 energy requirement (kJ kg )

25 20 15 10 5 0 0 20 40 60 Time (min) 80 100 v = 1 m/s v = 2 m/s

Fig. 12. Specic supplementary energy requirement due to the use of LHS.

rate of air would be constant at 30 kJ kg1 (if the ambient air was at 30 C). If an LHS was used, some energy could be saved, however. The amount of energy saving and supplementary energy required should a constant inlet air temperature was to maintain was calculated and the results are shown in Fig. 12. Since the total energy required for the whole drying period at 60 C and at air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1 was 3000 and 2100 kJ min kg1, respectively, the amount of specic supplementary energy requirement was 1805 and 1386 kJ min kg1 for inlet air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, respectively. An energy saving due to the use of this LHS was therefore calculated to be 40% and 34%, respectively. 4. Conclusion This study investigated the feasibility of using an LHS to conserve energy during drying. The LHS prototype using paran wax as a phase change material was used in the study. Heat transfer characteristics, temperature proles as well as the eects of the inlet air temperature and velocity on the charge and discharge periods were investigated. It was found that melting was dominated by heat conduction followed by free convection; melting took place from the center of the LHS to a point far away in the radial direction and took place from top to bottom points in the axial direction. However, only heat conduction was dominant in the solidication process. PCM froze from an outer to an inner of the LHS tank due to heat loss to the surrounding. Charge time decreased with an increase of the inlet air temperature and air velocity. The amount of extractable energy per unit mass ow rate of inlet ambient air was 1920 and 1386 kJ min kg1 when using inlet air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, respectively. This LHS could save energy during drying of sweet potato by approximately 40% and 34% when using inlet air velocity of 1 and 2 m s1, respectively. It should be mentioned, however, that the energy savings are strictly limited to thermal energy. Heat losses or extra power needed to force the air

through the unit of larger pressure drop are not included. An analysis of the increased capital and operating costs and how these costs could be oset by the saved thermal energy should also be performed. References
[1] A. Abhat, Low-temperature latent heat thermal energy storage: heat storage materials, Solar Energy 30 (1983) 313332. [2] J.C. Choi, S.D. Kim, Heat-transfer characteristics of a latent heat storage system using MgCl26H2O, Energy 17 (1992) 11531164. [3] S. Devahastin, K.W. Ng, A.S. Mujumdar, Preliminary study of a novel thermal storage-spouted bed contactor for particulate drying, in: 48th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, London, Ontario 1998. [4] I. Dincer, Evaluation and selection of energy storage systems for solar thermal applications, International Journal of Energy Research 23 (1999) 10171028. [5] M. Esen, A. Durmus, A. Durmus, Geometric design of solar aided latent heat storage depending on various parameters and phase change materials, Solar Energy 62 (1998) 1928. [6] H. Ettouney, H. El-Dessouky, E. Al-Kandari, Heat transfer characteristics during melting and solidication of phase change energy storage process, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 43 (2004) 53505357. [7] Z.-X. Gong, A.S. Mujumdar, Enhancement of energy charge discharge rates in composite slabs of dierent phase change materials, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 39 (1996) 725733. [8] Z.-X. Gong, A.S. Mujumdar, Cyclic heat transfer in a novel storage unit of multiple phase change materials, Applied Thermal Engineering 16 (1996) 807815. [9] Z.-X. Gong, A.S. Mujumdar, Finite element analysis of a multistage latent heat thermal storage system, Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A 30 (1996) 669684. [10] Z.-X. Gong, A.S. Mujumdar, Finite-element analysis of cyclic heat transfer in a shell-and-tube latent heat energy storage exchanger, Applied Thermal Engineering 17 (1997) 583591. [11] A.H. Guerrero, S.M. Aceves, E.C. Tuia, J.C.B. Cervantes, Modeling of the charge and discharge processes in energy storage cells, Energy Conversion and Management 40 (1999) 17531763. [12] M. Hasan, A.S. Mujumdar, M.E. Weber, Cyclic melting and freezing, Chemical Engineering Science 46 (1991) 15731587. [13] V.G. Jariwala, A.S. Mujumdar, M.E. Weber, Periodic steady state for cyclic energy storage in paran wax, Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering 65 (1987) 899906.

S. Devahastin, S. Pitaksuriyarat / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 17051713 [14] M. Lacroix, Study of the heat transfer behavior of a latent heat thermal energy storage unit with a nned tube, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 36 (1993) 20832092. [15] A. Sari, K. Kaygusuz, Thermal energy storage system using stearic acid as a phase change material, Solar Energy 71 (2001) 365 376. [16] S.D. Sharma, D. Buddhi, R.L. Sawhney, Accelerated thermal cycle test of latent heat-storage materials, Solar Energy 66 (1999) 483 490.

1713

[17] S.P. Sukhatme, Solar Energy Principles of Thermal Collection and Storage, second ed., Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi, 1996, pp. 248288. [18] V.V. Wadekar, Improving industrial heat transfer compact and notso-compact heat exchangers, Journal of Enhanced Heat Transfer 5 (1998) 5369. [19] M. Yanadori, T. Masuda, Heat transfer study on a heat storage container with a phase change material (Part 2. Heat transfer in the melting process in a cylindrical heat storage container), Solar Energy 42 (1989) 2734.