Experimental and numerical investigation of

a packed-bed thermal energy storage device

Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1850, 080027 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4984448
Published Online: 27 June 2017

Bei Yang, Yan Wang, Fengwu Bai, et al.

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AIP Conference Proceedings 1850, 080027 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4984448 1850, 080027

© 2017 Author(s).
 Experimental and Numerical Investigation of a Packed-bed
Thermal Energy Storage Device
Bei Yanga), Yan Wang, Fengwu Baib), Zhifeng Wang

Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

China National Solar Thermal Energy Alliance,
Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic System of Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing Engineering Research Center of Solar Thermal Power，
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
a)
Corresponding author:yangbei0127@163.com
b)
baifw@mail.iee.ac.cn, Tel:+86-1062558289

Abstract. This paper presents a pilot-scale setup built to study a packed bed thermal energy storage device based on
ceramic balls randomly poured into a cylindrical tank while using air as heat transfer fluid. Temperature distribution of
ceramic balls throughout the packed bed is investigated both experimentally and numerically. Method of characteristic is
adopted to improve the numerical computing efficiency, and mesh independence is verified to guarantee the accuracy of
numerical solutions and the economy of computing time cost at the same time. Temperature in tests is as high as over 600
℃, and modeling prediction shows good agreements with experimental results under various testing conditions when
heat loss is included and thermal properties of air are considered as temperature dependent.

Keywords. Packed bed, Thermal Energy Storage, High temperature, Experimental, Numerical

INTRODUCTION
Thermal energy storage (TES) systems are normally useful for correcting the decoupling between the power
required by users and that produced by solar thermal power plants[1].The form of sensible heat storage in packed-
bed of solid material is especially suitable for the system whose heat transfer fluid (HTF) is air, and the cost of
fabrication of tank as well as heat storage materials is significantly lower than other TES methods[2]. A wide body
of publications[3,4,5] describe numerical models for sensible heat storage in packed-beds, whereas experimental
investigations and validations are relatively lacking, especially in large scale and in high temperature.
This paper presents a pilot-scale setup built to study a TES device using ceramic balls as TES material while air
as HTF. Experiments under various working conditions have been carried out, and a one-dimensional two-phase
transient model has been developed based on the actual testing device, which also has been experimentally validated
through various tests.

A PILOT-SCALE TES DEVICE AND EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

A Pilot Packed-bed TES Device

The packed-bed TES device is shown schematically in Fig.1, which consists of one cylindrical shell and two
conical shells. The two conical shells are respectively arranged on the top and the bottom of the tank, used to be
connected with the pipes and help to form a relatively uniform air flow. The tank has a circular cross section with a
inner diameter of 0.7 m, and a total height of 4 m. The tank wall is made of a 100mm layer of refractory bricks,

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AIP Conf. Proc. 1850, 080027-1–080027-9; doi: 10.1063/1.4984448
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which has low heat expansion coefficient and relatively high strength, contributing to reduce the effect of thermal
ratcheting and thus to prolong service life of the whole system; In addition, the refractory brick has low thermal
conductivity, along with a 100-mm layer of asbestos insulation outside it to reduce heat loss through the tank wall to
the ambient. The outermost layer of the tank is a stainless steel shell, 6 mm thick.
High alumina ceramic balls with an equivalent sphere diameter of 25 mm, are chosen to be the TES material in
this study, which are randomly poured into the TES tank, shown as Fig.2. The physical parameters of the ceramic
balls are shown in table 1.

FIGURE 1 Photo of packed-bed TES device FIGURE 2 Photo of ceramic balls

TABLE 1. Physical parameters of packed bed

Al2O3(%) Packed Porosity(  ) Density(  s kg/m3) Specific Heat Capacity ( cs kJ/(kg· ))

65 0.46 2200 1.10

*
Physical property parameters of ceramic balls here are measured under temperature of 300°C.

A Packed-bed TES Testing System

FIGURE 3 Schematic of packed-bed TES system

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 Fig.3 shows the schematic of the packed-bed TES testing system, which consists of a blower, an air heating
furnace, the packed-bed TES device mentioned above, regulating valves and some testing apparatus. During the
charging process, the ambient air pumped from the blower can be heated to 900℃ by the 60 kW electric heating
furnace, and then the hot air enters from the top of the TES device, flows downwards through the packed bed to
charge the ceramic balls. Charging from the top allows the full use of the air buoyancy effect to create and maintain
thermal stratification inside the packed bed, keeping the hottest region at the top and the coldest bottom. While
during discharging, the direction of the flow is reversed as cold air is circulated through the tank from the bottom.
During the testing processes, the temperatures both of air throughout the system and ceramic balls in packed bed
are measured by 43 K-type or S-type thermocouples, of which 30 are arranged inside the packed bed, vertically 5
measurement sections in every 0.5-m high, and radially 6 thermocouples in each measurement section, notably that
the thermocouples at the height of 2.5 m are not covered with ceramic balls, shown as Fig.4. In addition, other
measurements include: ambient air temperature, the air flow rates at the inlet and outlet of TES system, and pressure
drop when the air flowing through the packed bed. The thermocouples have an accuracy of ±0.5%. The flow meters
installed at the inlet of system is a volumetric flow meter with a measuring range of 15~300m3/h and outlet a
vortex-shedding flow meter with range of 80~800m3/h, both of which share a common accuracy of ±0.5%.

(a) (b)

FIGURE 4 Distribution of testing sections in packed bed (a) and testing points in each section (b)

NUMERICAL MODEL

Hypothesis and Modeling

Since the transient temperature of air and ceramic balls inside the TES device is the key parameter indicating the
TES performance, the energy balance analysis for air and ceramic balls is to set up with governing equations for the
temperature of both phases. Shown in fig.4 is a one dimensional control volume in size dz in the packed bed.
Several suitable assumptions based on the actual experimental conditions are typically made to simplify the
analysis of the TES process:
1. The radial distribution of air and ceramic balls in the TES tank is assumed to be uniform, thus the problem
is simplified to be a one-dimensional one along the height of the tank.
2. The Biot number of the transient heat conduction in a single ceramic ball is small enough (Bi<0.1) that
lumped heat capacitance method is applicable to the heat conduction in solid phase.
3. Contacts between ceramic balls are point contacts, thus heat conduction between ceramic balls are
negligible.
4. The heat conductivity of air is so low that axial heat conduction of fluid phase is negligible.

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 The rationality of assumption 1 can be verified via the experimental results of radial temperature distribution of
ceramic balls, which is shown as Fig.5.

FIGURE 5 Microelement for modeling and Temperature measuring section location

(a) Charging process (b)Discharging process

FIGURE 6 Radial temperature distribution of ceramic balls in measurement section of 2.0 m high along the TES tank

It can be seen from Fig.6 that the maximum radial temperature difference of ceramic balls is about 40 ℃ and 15 ℃
during the charging and discharging process respectively, which indicates good radial uniformity of the packed bed
considering that the temperature level of TES is relatively high in this study. Notably, the maximum radial
temperature difference of discharging process is much smaller than that of charging, for the reason that the packed
bed with irregular porosity can contribute to making the air flow more and more evenly when air flows upward
through it during discharging.
Based on the above assumptions, a set of transient, one-dimensional energy equations for both fluid (1) and solid
(2) phases along the axis of the bed can be modeled as follows:
Fluid:
( f c f Tf ) (  f c f T f )
 R 2   R 2U  hS s (Ts  T f )  U wall  2R (T  T f ) (1)
t z
Solid:
Ts
 s cs (1   ) R 2  hS s (T f  Ts ) (2)
t
Where,  is porosity of packed bed, T is surrounding temperature, R is radius of TES tank and U is the
average fluid velocity in the packed bed, which is expressed as:
m f
U (3)
 f  R 2

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 h is the heat transfer coefficient between air and ceramic balls, which can be calculated by the empirical
correlation of Coutier[6]:
700
h G 0.76 d 0.24 (4)
6(1   )
Where, d is diameter of ceramic balls, and G is the mass flow rate per unit cross section, which can be expressed
as:
m f
G (5)
 R2
S s is the heat transfer surface area of ceramic balls per unit length of the tank, which can be calculated as
Equation (4) based on assumption 2.
f s R 2 (1   )
Ss  (6)
r
Where, r is equivalent radius of ceramic balls, and f s is the surface shape factor, which may vary between 2 and
3 depending on the packing structure of ceramic balls. In this study, it is chosen to be 3.
U wall is the overall heat loss coefficient through the tank wall, which can be calculated by the method given by
Hänchen[2].

Numerical Solution
Equation (1) and (2) can be simplified by introducing the following dimensionless variables:
Tf  Tl
f  (7)
Th  Tl
Ts  Tl
s  (8)
Th  Tl
z
zz  (9)
H
t
tt  (10)
(H / U )
Where,  f is dimensionless fluid temperature, s is dimensionless solid temperature, zz is dimensionless
packed height (while H is the actual total height of packed bed), and tt is dimensionless time. Thus, the
dimensionless governing equations for both phases are as follows:
Fluid:
 f  f 1 1
  (s  f )  (  f ) (11)
tt zz X Y
Solid:
 s 1
 ( f   s ) (12)
tt W
Where, X, Y and W are the simplified coefficients, which are respectively expressed as:
1 H hSs
 (13)
X U  f c f (1   ) R2
1 H 2U wall
 (14)
Y U  f c f  R

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 1 H hSs
 (15)
W U s cs (1   ) R2
A method of characteristics given by Van Lew[7] is adopted in this study to solve the dimensionless energy
balance equations for heat transfer between air and ceramic balls. Equation (11) and (12) can be reduced along the
characteristic zz  tt  const and zz  const respectively, and then be led to the solutions as Equation (16) and
(17) via integral-discretization and trapezoidal rule:
 tt 1 1 1  tt 1 1  tt  tt
[1  (  )] f 2,2  (  tt ) s 2,2  [1  (  )] f 1,1  ( ) s1,1  ( )  (16)
2 X Y 2X 2 X Y 2X Y
tt  tt  tt  tt
(1  ) s 2,2  ( ) f 2,2  (1  ) s 2,1  ( ) f 2,1 (17)
2W 2W 2W 2W
Equations (16) and (17) can be reposed as a group of algebraic equations for two unknowns of  f 2,2 and  s 2,2 ,
while  f and  s at grid point  f 1,1 and  s 2,1 are known.
 tt 1 1 tt   tt 1 1 tt  tt 
1  2 ( X  Y ),  2 X   f 2,2  [1  2 ( X  Y )] f 1,1  ( 2 X ) s1,1  ( Y )  
    (18)
  tt ,1  tt   s 2,2   (1  tt )  ( tt ) 
 2W 2W 
 
 2W
s 2,1
2W
f 2,1

Since Equation (18) is only for two equations, Cramer’s rule can be applied to obtain the solution, which
contributes to the numerical computation with the minimum computing time.
Fig.7 shows the solution matrix by using method of characteristics, where M is the spatial grid number, zz is
the dimensionless spatial step length, N is the time grid number, and tt is the dimensionless time step length.

FIGURE 7 Solution matrix by using method of characteristics

In the solution matrix, shown as Fig.7, since the conditions at 1,1 , 1,2 , and
 2,1 are known for both phases based
on the actual experiment conditions, the temperatures of ceramic balls and air at  2,2 will be easily calculated from
Equation (18). Then extending the above sample calculation to all points in the  grid of time and space for both
phases, the entire matrix of solutions in time and space for both ceramic balls and air can be obtained eventually.

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 Mesh Independence
For transient numerical simulation, the refinement of mesh is vital for the accuracy of calculation. In the process
of the above numerical solution, the characteristic direction of zz  tt  const has been adopted, which determines
the relationship between M and N as follows:
H t
U  (19)
M N
Thus once the packed bed along its height are divided into 10, 25, 50, and 100 nodes, the space step length dz ,
the time grid number N, and the time step length dt are also exclusively determined. Fig.8 shows the air discharging
temperature distribution under various mesh divisions. It can be seen from the figure that it’s relatively suitable to
choose the spatial nodes of 25 with a space step length of 0.10 m when calculating in this numerical model to save
the cost of computing time.

FIGURE 8 Air discharging outlet temperature distributions of different mesh divisions

EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
Two sets of experiments, with discharging air flow rate of 100 Nm³/h (Nm³/h is a volume flow rate unit under
standard state where pressure is 101.325kPa, and temperature is 0 ℃) and 150 Nm³/h respectively, have been chosen to
validate the above model. Table 2 shows solution conditions of the two verifying experiments, where the initial
temperature continuous distribution along the packed bed is fitting curves obtained by five initial average
temperature values from the five temperature testing sections along the packed bed via a quartic polynomial fit.
Table 3 shows the air thermo-physical properties which are temperature dependent.
TABLE 2. Solution conditions under various verifying experiments

Working Initial conditions Boundary conditions

Conditions （Initial temperature throughout packed bed /℃） （Air inlet temperature /℃）

150Nm³/h Ts _ 0  49.26 z  233.6 z  274.9 z  217.2 z  79.31

4 3 2
Tf _ in  27
100Nm³/h Ts _ 0  7.74 z  12.14 z  27.71z  285.9 z  63.08
4 3 2
Tf _ in  25

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 TABLE 3. Fitting curves for air properties dependent on temperature
Thermo-physical properties Fitting Curves（20℃~1000℃）
Density  (kg/m )3
 =0.5988exp  -0.006201T f   0.6866exp  -0.0009295T f 
cp  (0.0001964Tf  0.9928)  10
3
Specific Heat c p (J/(kg·K)

viscosity coefficient  (kg/(m·s))  f  (0.3869exp(0.0003123Tf )-0.2146exp(-0.001726Tf )) 10

( 4)

Seen from Fig.9, the modeling predicted temperatures versus time at different height locations along the packed
bed during discharging are compared with the actual experimental data under various working conditions. The trend
of temperature curves from the modeling prediction and experimental test is quite consistent.

(a) 100Nm3/h (b) 150Nm3/h

FIGURE 9 Comparison of modeling predicted results with experimental results under various operating conditions
Table 4 shows error analysis of the above modeling prediction results compared with experimental results, seen
from which the average relative error is always less than 7%. With uncertainties in experimental tests and
assumptions in modeling considered, it is believed that the agreement between modeling prediction and
experimental results is quite satisfactory, which indicates that the current modeling and its numerical solution
method have a relatively high accuracy and precision.
TABLE 4. Error analysis of experimental validation
Working
Error Analysis h=0.5m h=1.0m h=1.5m h=2.0m
Conditions
500℃ Average Error（℃） 1.04 0.71 2.36 11.53
100Nm³/h Average Relative Error 2.22% 0.86% 1.81% 6.29%
500℃ Average Error（℃） 0.56 2.31 5.60 9.94
150Nm³/h Average Relative Error 1.52% 3.72% 5.65% 6.73%

RESULTS
This paper presents a pilot-scale setup built to study performance of a packed bed TES device using ceramic
balls as TES material while air as HTF. Temperature distribution of ceramic balls throughout the packed bed is
investigated both experimentally and numerically. Experiments under various working conditions have been carried
out, and a one-dimensional two-phase transient model has been developed based on the actual testing device.
Method of characteristic is adopted to improve the numerical computing efficiency, and mesh independence is
verified to guarantee the accuracy of numerical solutions and the economy of computing time cost at the same time.
Results have shown that the current modeling and its numerical solution method have a relatively high accuracy and
precision, which indicates that the model can be used to further study on performance parameters effects on TES,

080027-8
control strategy of charging and discharging processes, optimization design of large commercial TES system and as
well as ways to TES system integrated into plant.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51306170) and the National
Key Technologies R&D Programme of China (No.2014BAA01B00).

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