Dynamical System Scaling of a Thermocline Thermal Storage System in the Thermal Energy Distribution System (TEDS) Facility

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a process to convert input signals from one facility into another by reflecting geometric and environmental settings. The Dynamic Energy Transport and Integration Laboratory (DETAIL) is one facility in development that aims to emulate the daily interactions among power production industry systems and be capable of receiving real-time data from those systems as inputs. To convert signals and ensure that the temporal sequences and magnitudes reflect the laboratory settings, the ability to scale and project data is essential. To demonstrate this ability, Dynamical System Scaling (a methodology that enables systems to scale and project or extrapolate datasets to desired environments while conserving the observed transient behavior based on first principles) was applied to DETAIL’s thermocline thermal storage system in the Thermal Energy Distribution System. The thermocline system was successfully scaled and a test case was conducted to generate a doubly accelerated energy charge and discharge in reference to past experimental data from the facility. The accelerated data were determined as able to conserve the amount of energy stored and the associated test boundary conditions were charge line maximum temperature, charge line velocity, and thermocline maximum temperature at 354 °C, 0.458 m/s, and 418 °C, respectively. The research results represented a case that required signals to be accelerated without altering the stored energy.

Scaling Outlooks on Integrated Energy Systems

“…Although the log-scale magnitudes vary significantly, it can be seen with every tank size for both the simple and scaled designs that the trends follow the single-tank data. The basic trend observed was tank drainage starting from a partially filled tank with parameter of interest values ranging from 0.5 < 𝛽 < 0.6 and all ending at near 0, which is the value at minimum tank level according to the normalization method used by Equation (23). For the simple design, Tank Number Cases 4 and 10 were relatively farther than the other cases in reference to the single-tank data.…”

“…This is the result of following the scaling objective to match total heat storage. Abiding with the scaling objectives and scaled equations for TEDS in Table 2, the 𝜔-strain (𝜆 𝐴,𝑡ℎ = 1) coordinate transformation scaled form from [23] is applicable, and the results can be given by: (18) Because the test case and projected case operating temperatures are known, the maximum accelerated time ratio is 0.855. In addition, because the mass ratio is 3361/4158=0.808, the mass flow rate ratio is 𝑚̇𝑅=0.946.…”

“…Setting the parameters of interest to be liquid mass, liquid velocity, and liquid temperature, the corresponding dimensionless form is determined by dividing the nominal value and reorganizing to be explicit to the corresponding parameter of interest. By following the procedure in Section 2, Table 7 provides the derived relation (procedure can be found in Yoshiura et al's 2022 article [23]).…”

Engineering-Scale Integrated Energy System Data Projection Demonstration via the Dynamic Energy Transport and Integration Laboratory

“…Future collaborations with fellow national laboratory efforts are key to cover all aspects of IES. As part two of this effort (part one is under [11,12]) to develop system-to-system adapters using scaling methodologies, the purposes of this continued effort are to:…”

“…As shown in Sections 8.1 and 8.2, the equations stated in Section 6 are in scaled form. Because the steps and results of this process are provided in [11], the steps are here omitted, and the results are presented in Sections 8.3.1 and 8.3.2. The mass scaled equations are the same as Section 8.2.1 and are omitted as well.…”