AN EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF A STRATIFIED THERMAL STORAGE UNDER VARIABLE INLET TEMPERATURE FOR DIFFERENT INLET DESIGNS

This paper presents a comprehensive experimental study to evaluate the performance of a stratified tank under variable inlet temperature conditions. A new inlet design (a modified version of Davis and Bartera's inlet design) was used and compared with the two most widely used conventional inlets (side and top). The results indicate that passive devices of the kind used by Davis and Bartera and this study, offer no advantage over the conventional inlets under variable inlet temperature conditions. However, the experimental database provided in this study is invaluable to the development of computational models which are more capable in identifying the promising inlet designs for stratification enhancement in single stratified tanks.