Optimality Criterion-Based Latent Heat Storage Heat Exchangers Topology Optimization Method

Abstract

Latent heat storage technology is a crucial solution for addressing the intermittency challenges of clean energy sources. To increase the heat storage and discharge efficiency of latent heat storage systems, this study proposes a topology optimization approach that minimizes thermal compliance as the objective function. The proposed approach is applied to the optimization of a latent heat storage triple-tube heat exchanger and the optimal criterion method is used to update the design structure. To evaluate the computational effectiveness of this method, this study compares the results of this method with the results obtained through COMSOL-based topology optimization. The results show that this method can save 11.90% of single-step optimization time and reduce the number of convergence steps by 13.04% while ensuring the heat transfer performance of the optimized fin structure. This study further compared the differences in heat transfer performance between the topology fin structure and the reported optimized triangular fin structure. Compared to triangular fins, the topology fins significantly shorten the PCM solidification time, and the latent heat release time reduces by 69.75%. To find a better fin structure, this study analyzes the changes in the heat storage and heat release time of the latent heat storage system with varying volume constraints. As the volume constraint increases, both the heat storage capacity and heat release time gradually decrease. By comparing the variation rates of heat storage capacity and heat release time with respect to the volume constraint, it is found that the optimal volume constraint is 0.175.

Keywords: Latent Heat Storage, Triple-tube Heat Exchanger, Topology Optimization, Optimality Criterion Method