• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.86-91
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• 2011

Thermal design was conducted for a solar thermal storage system in a medium-temperature range between $200^{\circ}C$ and $400^{\circ}C$. The system was composed of heat pipes as heat carrier and molten salts as phase-change storage material. Each heat pipe penetrated through the storage system and had two heat-exchanging sections at both ends to interact with high-and low-temperature steams, while it exchanged heat with molten salts in the middle section. During a heat-storage mode, the heat pipes transferred heat from the hot steam at one side to the molten salts and it transferred heat from the molten salt to the cold steam at the other side during the heat-dissipating mode. A tube-bank type heat exchanger theory was applied to this design task to meet the required inlet and outlet temperatures of the steams depending on the operation modes. Several design variables were considered including the lengths of evaporator and condenser of a heat pipe, traverse and longitudinal pitches of the pipe, and the number of rows of the heat pipes for two different molten salt baths. An optimum design results were presented with discussion.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.190-193
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• 2008

The heat transfer characteristics of molten salt storage system for the solar thermal power generation were investigated. Temperature profiles and the heat transfer coefficients during the storage and discharge stage were obtained with the steam as the heat transfer fluid. Two kinds of inorganic salt were employed as the storage materials and coil type of heat exchanger were installed in both tanks to provide the heat transfer surfaces during the storage and discharge stage. The effects of steam flow rates, flow direction of steam in the storage tank and the initial temperature of storage and discharge tank on the heat transfer were tested.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1135-1144
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• 2024

With the increasing ratio of renewables in the grid, a low-carbon and stable base load source that also is capable of load tracking is in demand. Sodium cooled fast reactors (SFRs) coupled to thermal heat storage system (THS) is a strong candidate for the need. This research focuses on the designing and performance validation of a two-tank THS based on molten salt to integrate with a 280 MW_th sodium cooled fast reactor. Designing of the THS includes the vital component, sodium-to-salt heat exchanger which is a technology gap that needs to be filled, and designing and parameter selection of the tanks and related pumps. Modeling of the designed THS is conducted followed by the description of operation strategies and control logics of the THS. Finally, the dynamic simulation of the designed THS is conducted based on Fortran. Results show, the proposed power system meets the need of the design requirements to store heat for 18 h during a day and provide 500 MW_th for peak demand for the rest of the day.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.63-69
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• 2007

The heat transfer characteristics of inorganic salt for high temperature heat storage material of solar power system were examined. The inorganic salts employed in this study was a mixture of $NaNO_3$ and $KNO_3$ and the operating temperature range was determined by measuring the melting temperature with DSC and by measuring the thermal decomposition temperature with TGA. The heat transfer characteristics was qualitatively obtained in terms of temperature profiles of salt in the tanks during the heat storage and heat release process as a function of steam flow rates, steam inlet temperature and the inlet position of steam. The effects of steam flow rates and inlet temperature of steam were experimentally determined and the effect of natural convection was observed due to significant density difference with temperature.

• Solar Energy
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 1988

Heat transfer phenomena in a high-temperature heat storage unit were investigated using molten salts. Carbonate salt, an equimolar mixture of $Li_2CO_3$ and $K_2CO_3$, which melts at $505^{\circ}C$ with a latent heat of 82 cal/g, was selected as the most promising latent heat storage material based on its low cost and excellent thermophysical properties at moderately high temperatures. It was also found that nitrate salts were good candidates of sensible heat storage materials. For the carbonate salt to be utilized commercially, however, several means of enhancing thermal recovery must be explored by promoting heat conduction through the solid salt formed during the heat discharge period. These would be achieved by the additions of aluminum screens and wool, and stainless fins. Finally, experimental results of moving boundary of phase change were well compared with predictied values obtained from the approximate solution.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.248-257
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• 2020

This study presents an initial design for a novel system consisting in a coupled nuclear reactor and a phase change material-based thermal energy storage (TES) component, which acts as a buffer and regulator of heat transfer between the primary and secondary loops. The goal of this concept is to enhance the capacity factor of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the case of high integration of renewable energy sources into the electric grid. Hence, this system could support in elevating the economics of NPPs in current competitive markets, especially with subsidized solar and wind energy sources, and relatively low oil and gas prices. Furthermore, utilizing a prismatic-core advanced high temperature reactor (PAHTR) cooled by a molten salt with a high melting point, have the potential in increasing the system efficiency due to its high operating temperature, and providing the baseline requirements for coupling other process heat applications. The present research studies the neutronics and thermal hydraulics (TH) of the PAHTR as well as TH calculations for the TES which consists of 300 blocks with a total heat storage capacity of 150 MWd. SERPENT Monte Carlo and MCNP5 codes carried out the neutronics analysis of the PAHTR which is sized to have a 5-year refueling cycle and rated power of 300 MW_th. The PAHTR has 10 metric tons of heavy metal with 19.75 wt% enriched UO₂ TRISO fuel, a hot clean excess reactivity and shutdown margin of $33.70 and -$115.68; respectively, negative temperature feedback coefficients, and an axial flux peaking factor of 1.68. Star-CCM + code predicted the correct convective heat transfer coefficient variations for both the reactor and the storage. TH analysis results show that the flow in the primary loop (in the reactor and TES) remains in the developing mixed convection regime while it reaches a fully developed flow in the secondary loop.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.555-560
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• 2018

The high temperature stability of a chloride mixture, $NaCl-KCl-ZnCl_2$ (NaKZn-Chloride), is investigated to evaluate its potential as a thermal storage material. A thermal storage media should maintain a stable thermal properties within the temperature range of heat storage. Results from an a priori experiment showed that the NaKZn-chloride is stable only up the much lower temperature, while its stability limit is reported to be $850^{\circ}C$ in the literature. This study aims to investigate if the thermal property is changed by the moisture absorbed in the heat storage material. The effect of moisture content on the thermal properties was measured. The results show that the melting point remains the same regardless of the amount of moisture absorbed. Meanwhile, the high temperature stability is lower for the moisture treated samples. The results of this work infer that the loss of a hygroscopic thermal storage media can be reduced by avoiding its contacts to moisture in designing high temperature thermal storage systems.