• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.331-341
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• 2013

In a solar domestic hot water (SDHW) system, solar energy is collected using collector panels, transferred to a circulating heat transfer fluid (brine), and eventually stored in a thermal storage tank (TST) as hot water. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to predict the solar thermal energy storage in a hybrid-type TST equipped with a helical jacket heater (mantle heat exchanger) and an immersed spiral coil heater. The helical jacket heater, which is the brine flow path attached to the side wall of a TST, has advantages including simple system design, low brine flow rate, and enhanced thermal stratification. In addition, the spiral coil heater further enhances the thermal performance and thermal stratification of the TST. The developed model was validated by the good agreement between the CFD results and the experimental results performed with the hybrid-type TST in SDHW settings.