In this paper Phase Change Materials (PCM)
have been studied in order to provide guidelines
to increase the efficiency of a tank storage
system typically used in Solar Domestic Hot
Water (SDHW) plants. The work stems from
some literature results about the use of PCM in
storage tanks which highlight the scarce impact
of this technology on the overall system.
Some related studies suggest that the
introduction of PCM modules into a storage tank
may be convenient only if the system is
optimized in order to exploit the energy storage
capabilities of the material. In this process
should be taken into account different
parameters such as the complexity of the
system, the PCM characteristics and the
interaction with the climatic conditions.
In this work a PCM improved storage tank,
inserted into a typical Solar Domestic Hot Water
(SDHW) system, has been optimized using
mono and multiobjective genetic algorithms. The
optimization has been carried with the
modeFRONTIER optimization tool, while the
system plant has been analysed by means of a
modified version of the building energy
simulation code ESP-r.
In parallel with the optimization a sensitivity
analysis has been carried on in order to find out
the relation between the design parameters of
the tank (geometry, temperature of the PCM and
user behaviour) and the performance of the
system.
Thanks to the multiobjective optimization of the
system different solutions have been presented
with different rankings of the optimized
variables.
