Changing the inner tube shape proves to be an effective method to enhance the efficiency of horizontal latent heat thermal energy storage exchangers (H-LHTES), which can improve the heat transfer efficiency of exchangers. This paper proposed an I-beam inner tube exchanger, which contained I-1 and I-2 types, then under the constant mass of phase change material, the charging and discharging performance of the H-LHTES with I-beam, circular, rectangular and rhombic inner tube shapes were comparatively investigated using FLUENT numerical simulation software. The results demonstrated that compared with the circular inner tube, the charging and discharging time reduces remarkably for the H-LHTES with I-beam, rectangular and rhombic inner tubes, and the I-beam inner tube shows the best enhancement effect, additionally, the I-1 has the shortest total time at the inner tube height of 74.8 mm, the charging and discharging time reduces by 82.41% and 43.56%, the total time decreases by 50.46%, the rectangular and rhombic inner tubes have the shortest total time at the inner tube height of 82.8 mm and 90.8 mm, the total time decreases by 34.7% and 36.99%, respectively. The results can supply a reference for the optimal design of inner tube shape of the H-LHTES.

中文翻译：

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内管形状对潜热蓄热交换器充放电性能的影响

改变内管形状被证明是提高卧式潜热储热换热器（H-LHTES）效率的有效方法，可以提高换热器的传热效率。本文提出了一种工字梁内管式换热器，包括I-1和I-2两种类型，然后在相变材料质量恒定的情况下，研究了工字梁、圆形、矩形H-LHTES的充放电性能。利用FLUENT数值模拟软件对内管形状和菱形内管形状进行了对比研究。结果表明，与圆形内管相比，工字梁、矩形和菱形内管的H-LHTES充放电时间显着缩短，且工字梁内管的增强效果最好，此外， I-1在内管高度74.8mm时总时间最短，充放电时间分别减少82.41%和43.56%，总时间减少50.46%，矩形和菱形内管总时间最短内管高度为82.8毫米和90.8毫米，总时间分别减少了34.7%和36.99%。研究结果可为H-LHTES内管形状的优化设计提供参考。