Four capillary mat heat exchangers set-ups have been experimentally evaluated using two volume flow rates and several testing sequences, i.e. sensible and cooling, icing and melting. An ice storage model with capillary mat heat exchangers able to consider the solidification of ice for asymmetric tube configurations has been developed and validated with the experiments. The model showed good results with root mean square (RMS) energy differences around 2 % for sensible heating and cooling and was able to predict the solidification of ice well for both symmetric and non-symmetric configurations with energy RMS differences of 6 %.

SPF Institute for Solar Technology