Inverse method to describe crystallization of undercooled water in cold storage tank

Abstract The objective of this work is to a physical model to describe the thermal performance of cylindrical tank filled with spherical water capsules during the storage period. A particularity is encountered in this type of storage; it refers to the supercooling phenomenon caused by the delay in the crystallization of the water in the capsules. The originality of this model consists in evaluating the heat flux exchanged between the heat transfer fluid (HTF) and the spherical capsules by using experimental data (here, the temperature) and an inverse method. The inverse method is addressed with a genetic algorithm (GA). The heat flux determined by the inverse method for one case of flowrate condition has been applied for other flowrates to evaluate the temperature of HTF at the outlet of the tank during the storage period. The obtained results are then compared with experimental results from the literature. A good agreement was found between the numerical and the experimental results. The influence of the flowrate of the HTF on the shape of the heat flux released by the capsules during the storage period is also analysed and discussed.