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Paraffin wax is applied to a solar water heater (SWH) as a thermal energy storage material due to its high energy density. Several previous studies have shown that integrating water and paraffin wax in the SWH tank can increase the thermal energy storage capacity. However, the thermal stratification of thermosyphon-type SWHs with horizontal tanks has not been explicitly disclosed. This paper investigates the thermal stratification of water inside the SWH tank containing paraffin wax. Paraffin wax was filled into a cylindrical capsule. The capsules were then put into the SWH tank and arranged parallel to the axis of the tank. The experiment was conducted for the duration of the charging process. The solar radiation intensity, the water, and the paraffin wax temperature were recorded. The resulting data was accustomed to graph the evolution of water and paraffin wax temperature. Based on the graph, thermal stratification was formed visually inside the tank. Stratification analysis was conjointly performed with the Richardson number calculation. The calculation shows that the value of Richardson's number is more than one. These results explain that thermal stratification occurs in the SWH tank. The addition of capsules containing paraffin wax can maintain thermal stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water use as a heat storage material in solar water heaters (SWH) has disadvantages, including its low energy density, which requires a large volume of thermal energy storage. Phase-change material (PCM) is a latent type of heat storage material that has the advantage of being a high energy density. Therefore, PCM is quite interesting to be applied to SWH systems. In the operation of SWH, it is necessary to know the characteristics of hot water usage. This paper aimed to determine the characteristics of a continuous and gradual discharging method on SWH that applies PCM. This study used a thermosyphon type of SWH. The tank was placed horizontally on the top side of the collector with a volume of 60 liters. Twenty-four cylindrical capsules containing paraffin wax were inserted into the tank. Thermocouples were installed on the waterside and the PCM side. Continuous and gradual methods were carried out in the discharging experiment. Experiments using a continuous discharging method given information that water temperature decrease continuously in the tank. Experiments with a gradual discharging method showed PCM's contribution, which can transfer thermal energy to the water. The gradual discharging method explained that the SWH system produced hot water that can be used for bathing as many as five people every day with water temperatures of 45 °C at an average solar radiation intensity of 514.89 W/m2. The use of PCM makes a positive contribution to the thermal energy storage in the tank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latent heat storage (LHS) has been widely used for energy storage. Compare to sensible heat storage, LHS has several benefits because of its high energy density, small unit sized and operating at low temperature. This paper is aimed to investigate the melting characteristic of phase change material (PCM) implemented in concentric double pipe heat exchanger. The investigation is carried out by both simulation as well as validation. The simulation is conducted using ANSYS FLUENT with double pipe shape of heat storage. The geometrical shape of the storage is double pipe heat exchanger, the PCM is stored in the inner tube meanwhile hot water is circulated in the outer tube. The dimension of the inner tube are 5 cm of diameter and 50 cm length. The diameter of outer tube is 10 cm and 60 cm length. The hot liquid is circulated from the inlet port and withdrawing from the outer port. The inlet and outlet ports are located away at the distance of 5 cm from the edge of the outer tube. The inlet and outlet ports are constructed at the bottom and upper part of the outer tube. The simulation is carried out at temperature 60oC of the hot liquid and flow rate at 4 liters per minute. The validation is also conducted at the same configuration with that on the simulation. The tweaked parameters are number of mesh and mushy-zone value. Results revealed that validation is numerically accepted at deviation less than 5% for melting time deviation. The validation is obtained at number of mesh is 144,000 and mushy-zone value is 1.4x107. On the evaluation of temperature distribution similarity, all of coefficient correlation are obtained greater than 0.8 between simulation and experiment. Being a valid simulation model, it is enabled to be enhanced for predicting melting of phase change materials on the heat energy storage system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]