Design and Simulation of Institutional Solar-Powered Cook Stove With Thermal Energy Storage System
Abstract
The feasibility of a solar-powered institutional cook stove with heat storage using commercial SHELL THERMIA OIL B as heat transfer media and potassium nitrate salt (40% KNO3+60% NaNO3) as the Phase Change Material (PCM) for institutional cooking has been successfully demonstrated. A mixture of 41L Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) (bulk temperatures up to 320ºC, and film temperature up to 340ºC) and 42 sealed copper tubes (Internal diameter 62.611 mm, 2 mm thickness 300 mm height) carrying a total of 60 kg of Phase Change Material (PCM) (melting point range of 210-220°C and the Latent heat of fusion 108.67 kJ/kg) is used to store heat. The HTF was filled in the storage compartment to cover the copper tubes and is assumed to fit within cylinder jackets that were wrapped around the tubes and also operate as a heat transfer medium. A heater with 4500 W and 220 V input power from the photovoltaic system is immersed inside the storage during the charging phase. The thermal storage's performance was assessed utilizing constant heat flux. The computer model was validated using existing experimental work. Based on the simulation results, a performance investigation was carried out, the thermal storage was able to store 53.5MJ of energy in 3.9 hours of charging time. The charging, and discharging efficiencies were 71.5%, and 85.6%, respectivelyThe results confirmed that the ANSYS Fluent CFD simulation for the stove was well validated and the model and simulation performance were good. Finally, the results indicate expanding the application of solar cooking at the institutional level is visible.
Keywords
Solar-powered cookstove, Thermal Storage, Phase Change Material