Numerical and experimental study on the thermal performance of the concrete accumulator for solar heating systems

The article presents the concept of the solar facility operating in the domestic hot water and space heating system, equipped with thermal energy storage based on a water tank and an auxiliary storage module made of concrete elements. A mathematical model of transient heat transfer in the concrete structure using the Control Volume Finite Element Method (CVFEM) has been proposed. The method allows modelling the transient heat conduction based on a rare mesh of nodes in a relatively short time, with accuracy comparable to traditional Finite Element Method (FEM) results including CFD modelling. A laboratory stand has been made for the verification of the model, and a set of comparative measurements has been carried out. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.