Performance Optimization of Thermocline Heat Storage Tank With Radial Diffuser

The integration of a thermocline heat storage tank is effective to achieve heat-power decoupling for the combined heat and power plant. In order to improve the performance of thermocline heat storage tank, numerical models of a large-scale tank with inclined temperature layer were developed, and then was validated with experiment results. Moreover, influences of diffuser sizes on the formation and thickness of thermocline were studied. Results show that thickness of thermocline increases when the radio of the diffuser diameter to the tank diameter increases from 0.127 to 0.167 and the dimensionless number is kept constant. However, when the outlet flow rate is kept constant, the thermocline thickness changes little because of combined influence of dimensionless numbers and diffuse size.