The thermal response of a cold LHTS unit with heat leak through side walls

A LHTS unit employed for cold thermal storage in an air conditioning plant has been numerically studied considering heat leak through sidewalls by convection. A temperature based system of governing equations has been arrived and solved numerically to investigate the influence of various parameters such as porosity, Stanton number, Stefan number and convective heat leak ratio on temperature, solidified fraction, energy storage and total charge fraction. The results indicate a significant delay in the solidification process with a relatively lower charging rate for the LHTS unit with convective heat leak. Limiting values of heat leak ratio has been presented to enable designing cold LHTS units with convective heat leak and operation of such units beyond the limiting values could result in partial charging with incomplete solidification.