Yndicio 3

ABSTRACT In this paper, a survey of the stratified thermal storage tank one-dimensional models available in the literature was carried out. Twelve one-dimensional models used in single stratified tanks were compared. The Kadhem and Hamed’s model [18] take into account the heat loss due to conduc- tion and convection of the tank wall and considers the degradation of thermocline during relaxation periods. The Alizadeh’s model predicts that 1.4% of heat loss comes from the tank to the ambient. INTRODUCTION Energy stores play an important role in con- serving the energy. Thermal storage devices are widely used in many thermal systems and applications that are characterized by the delay between energy production and consumption, such as thermal solar systems. The water is the most used storage tank medium for its abun- dance, high specific heat and low cost [1,2]. Due to its simplicity and low cost, these kind of thermal storage tanks and water have been used for load management and energy conser- vation in an increasing number of installations, specially in many sectors in engineering, such as petroleum, chemical industry, food industry, solar energy systems, industrial processes, re- frigeration and air conditioning, among others, require the use of thermal storages to optimize the performance of their systems [2, 3, 4]. Several studies have been carried out to study the performance of thermal storage tanks. One-dimensional models have been reported since 70’s and they have been used to predict the thermal behavior of storage tanks[3, 4, 5,