Design and characterization of a portable heat storage facility

¹ Laboratoire de Génie Civil, Hydraulique, Développement Durable et Environnement, (LAR-GHYDE), Université Mohamed Khider, BP 145, 07000 Biskra, Algérie
² Université d’El Oued, PO Box 789, 39000 El Oued, Algérie
³ Laboratoire de valorisation des technologies des ressources sahariennes (VTRS), Université d’El Oued, PO Box 789, 39000 El Oued, Algérie
⁴ Université de Lorraine, Laboratoire d’Energétique de Longwy/LERMAB, IUT Henri Poincaré de Longwy, 186 rue de Lorraine, 54400 Cosnes Et Romain, France

^a Corresponding author: Nadjiba213@Yahoo.fr

Received: 19 July 2014
Accepted: 6 February 2015

Abstract

This paper deals with the experimental investigation of transient behavior and thermal storage capability of a sensible heat storage unit. The former is designed to store solar energy by using sand as a storage medium. A cubic unit has been designed employing three configurations of embedded charging tubes to study the performances of the system. The storage material used in this experimentation (sand) has been characterized by its, grain size, density, and heat capacity. Performances of the thermal storage bed (including charging time, energy stored rate, charging energy efficiency) have been evaluated for selecting the storage material. From our experiments, we found that the number of charging tubes affects significantly the storage performances.