Sizing of a Packed Bed Storage for Solar Air Heating Systems (TECHNICAL NOTE)

Abstract

Packed bed units generally, represent the most suitable storage units for air heating solar systems. In these systems the storage unit receives the heat from the collector during the collection period and discharges the heat to the building at the retrieval process. A method for sizing of packedbed storage in an air heating system is represented. The design is based on the K-S curves, which have been generated for the storage used in the CSU solar House II through simulation. The complete simple solar heating system is simulated numerically during both the heating and retrieval processes. The simulation, which utilizes the hourly meteorological data, takes into account consideration of the principle parameters such as pressure drop across the bed, particle diameter, and mean voidage. The results are compared with the reported data from a real size of storage and also with the criteria of f-chart recommendation.