Study on the optimization of heating exchanger in electric heating solid energy storage heating system

Abstract

This paper addresses prevalent issues of suboptimal compatibility between the heating exchanger and the thermal storage unit, poor safety performance, and overall insufficient heat exchange efficiency within the application of heating exchangers in electric heating solid energy storage heating systems. Experimental testing and numerical simulation studies were conducted. The research investigates the effect of the temperature of inlet air as well as velocity on the heat exchange performance of the heating exchanger as well as temperature variations of single-row heat pipes. Drawing upon these change patterns, an optimized heating exchanger structure is proposed and subsequently investigated through optimization simulation studies. The study results indicate that the best overall optimization effect is achieved with a heating exchanger arranged with finned tube combinations of 4 mm in two rows, 6 mm in two rows, 8 mm in two rows, 10 mm in two rows, 12 mm in two rows, and 14 mm in ten rows arranged successively from front to back. When the heating exchanger’s inlet air speed is relatively high, this combination’s heat exchange capacity surpasses the original structure. Additionally, the uniformity of air-side temperature drop improved by 44.89%, while the finned area was reduced by 25.62%.