Experimental study and mathematical modelling of heat transfer processes in heat accumulating media

Experimental results on reversing non-stationary heat transfer are presented for filtration of an air flow through an immobile heat accumulating medium consisting of lead (D = 2.0, 3.5, and 4.5 mm) and glass (D = 3.2 mm) balls. The studied device imitated the cyclic modes of heat regeneration in the ventilation system for domestic and office rooms. Dependency between the time of flow switching and Re number was measured. The mathematical model describing heat transfer between a gas flow and an immobile layer of balls was developed. Good correspondence between the experimental data and calculation results is observed for high Reynolds numbers. For low Re numbers the effect of heat losses is considerable, and experimental time of flow switching is shorter than the calculation one. The work was financially supported by the President of the Russian Federation (Grant No. NSh 6526.2006.3), Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 06-08-00982), Foundation “Global energy” and Program “Energy saving of SB RAS”.