Modular heat storage in waste heat recovery installations

Abstract

The paper presents the methodology of designing a system for accumulating waste heat from industrial processes. The research aimed to analyse the fluid’s movement in the heat accumulator to unify the temperature field in the volume of water constituting the heat buffer. Using the computer program Ansys Fluent, a series of computational fluid dynamics simulations of the process of charging the heat storage with water at 60 ◦ C, 70 ◦ C, and 80 ◦ C was carried out. The selected temperatures correspond to the temperature range of unmanaged waste heat. In the presented solution, heat storage is loaded with water from the cooling systems of industrial equipment to store excess heat and use it at a later time. The results of numerical calculations were used to analyse the velocity and temperature fields in the selected structure of the modular heat storage. A novelty in the presented solution is the use of smaller modular heat storage units that allow any configuration of the heat storage system. This solution makes it possible to create heat storage with the required heat capacity.