Numerical modeling of the impact of regenerator housing on the determination of Nusselt numbers

The impact of the housing on the performance during cyclic steady-state regenerator operation is quantified by comparing the regenerator effectiveness for cases where the wall is ignored and with cases where it is included. It is shown that the effectiveness may be decreased by as much as 18% for the cases considered here. A reduced number of transfer units (NTUeff) is proposed based on the calculated regenerator effectiveness that accounts for the effect of the housing heat capacity.