Numerical Simulation of an Indirect Contact Mobilized Thermal Energy Storage Container with Different Tube Bundle Layout and Fin Structure

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have listed some comments to improve the quality of the research:

 

1-I suggest adding a graphical abstract that can improve the quality of your research and represent the core idea with key findings. You can find examples of graphical abstracts here:

https://www.elsevier.com/authors/tools-and-resources/visual-abstract

2- Another key figure at the end of the result and discussion in the form of a bar chart is required to compare the "average" performance indicator for different configurations (rather than time-dependent profiles).

3-Please same font and same size for text. For example, please check Fig 4 vs Fig 5.

4-Please clearly discuss the novelty of your research at the end of the introduction.

5-P1, "a Pilot model" & "P3, "analyzed Performance" P should be lowercase. Check the entire manuscript for similar ones.

6-A range is specified for each Density, Specific heat, Viscosity

and thermal conductivity. How are these values interpolated for a mid-range temperature?

7-In the solidification model required two temperatures for liquefication and solidification, which is expected to be clarified in table 1

8-The following two references can be referred to within the introduction as an additional example of "built-in heat exchanger between PCM and the heat transfer media". (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.120358)

9-The thermal resistance of the tube wall is neglected, contributing to neglecting the thickness of the wall. Apart from the impact on the thermal exchange, neglecting the thickness leads to additional volume for either HTO or PCM. Reader would be interested to know how the author dealt with this volume.

Author Response

The comments from Reviewer 1

#1: I suggest adding a graphical abstract that can improve the quality of your research and represent the core idea with key findings. You can find examples of graphical abstracts here:https://www.elsevier.com/authors/tools-and-resources/visual-abstract

Response: Thank you for your advice. I tried to make a graphical abstract, which may not be particularly perfect.

#2: Another key figure at the end of the result and discussion in the form of a bar chart is required to compare the "average" performance indicator for different configurations (rather than time-dependent profiles).

Response: Thank you for the good suggestion. In accordance with your request, we have added two bar graphs to the text to show the efficiency of heat charging for different layouts and different fin forms.

 

#3: Please same font and same size for text. For example, please check Fig 4 vs Fig 5.

Response: Thank you for your advice. The font of the text in Figure 4 has been enlarged.

 

#4: Please clearly discuss the novelty of your research at the end of the introduction.

Response: Thank you for your advice. The last paragraph of the introduction section has been rewritten.

 

#5:P1, "a Pilot model" & "P3, "analyzed Performance" P should be lowercase. Check the entire manuscript for similar ones.

Response: Thank you for the reminder that these were oversights in the writing. I have corrected each of them in the text.

 

#6:A range is specified for each Density, Specific heat, Viscosity and thermal conductivity. How are these values interpolated for a mid-range temperature?

Response: Thank you for your advice. The thermal properties given in the calculations are assumed to vary linearly with temperature.

 

#7: In the solidification model required two temperatures for liquefication and solidification, which is expected to be clarified in table 1

Response: Thank you for your advice. In the solidification model, the temperature required for melting and solidification is the same temperature, which means that the melting temperature given in Table 1 is also the solidification temperature.

 

#8:The following two references can be referred to within the introduction as an additional example of "built-in heat exchanger between PCM and the heat transfer media". (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.120358)

Response: Thank you for your advice. This literature is really good and has been cited in the text.

 

#9:The thermal resistance of the tube wall is neglected, contributing to neglecting the thickness of the wall. Apart from the impact on the thermal exchange, neglecting the thickness leads to additional volume for either HTO or PCM. Reader would be interested to know how the author dealt with this volume.

Response: You raise a very good question indeed! It is true that many articles on numerical calculations do not explain this issue. But this article is limited in space and will give a detailed answer in a future article. Thank you again for your good suggestion.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this study, the researchers studied an indirect-contact M-TES container by utilizing CFD Method. Important conclusions have been given for enhancing the charging and discharging efficiency for the device. This work presents important insights in the thermal energy storage field. This article is well written. Some suggestions are given below:

1.       The full names of some abbreviations at the first occurrence need to be given, like "CFD", "PCM", “ICEM” et al., for readers' easier understanding.

2.       Authors said that "In comparison with the container without fins, the heat charging efficiency of the container with Y-shaped fins can be increased by 8.3%.” Which time quantum was this increasement percentage determined? At the beginning of 6 hours or during the next 10 hours in Figure 9.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The comments from Reviewer 2

#1: The full names of some abbreviations at the first occurrence need to be given, like "CFD", "PCM", “ICEM” et al., for readers' easier understanding.

Response: Thank you for your advice. The full names of all the abbreviations, such as "CFD", "PCM", “ICEM” et al., at the first occurrence were given in our paper. But the ICEM is the name of software. I reworded its full name as ANSYS ICEM.

 

#2: Authors said that "In comparison with the container without fins, the heat charging efficiency of the container with Y-shaped fins can be increased by 8.3%.” Which time quantum was this increasement percentage determined? At the beginning of 6 hours or during the next 10 hours in Figure 9.

Response: This is a suggestion. I should show the time quantum when the incensement percentage was calculated. In section 4.2 of my article, I added something describing how to calculate the percentage increase.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Review report:

Authors reported “Numerical Simulation of an Indirect Contact Mobilized Thermal Energy Storage Containers with Different Tube Bundle Layout and Fin Structure”. The organization of this work is good, and the discussion is well organized. Nevertheless, I have some comments which are listed below.

1.     The synthesis scheme is not clear, and it should be revised in a detailed way.

2.     The author claimed that their work is a novel investigation, however, myriads of works related to “Mobile thermal energy storage (M-TES) technology“ have been published to date. So, authors should change the way of the presentation focusing on novelty. The introduction should be improved with a paragraph describing the novelty and importance of the work.

3.     The authors must carefully claim their novelty in the INTRODUCTION. In addition, the authors need to do some formatting errors that should be carefully checked and corrected in the text.

4.     The source and purity of all chemicals used should be specified. 

5.     A summary of key improvements compared to findings in the literature [provide a couple of references to indicate key improvements].

6.     Please provide the comparison table, which you need to prove that your material is superior to previously reported literature.

7.     The authors should add some literature descriptions to make the manuscript more convincing. I would like to suggest the authors cite the following relevant articles to enhance the background, supporting the importance of SCs; “Energies, 11 (2018), pp. 3285”, “Nanomaterials, 12 (2022), pp. 3187”

8.     The reviewer also suggests that authors get professional English services to correct the grammatical error and refine the expressions in the body of the manuscript.

9.     Authors should be trimmed/condensed the ‘Abstract’ and ‘Conclusion’ sections in the revised manuscript. Please keep highlights of the whole manuscript in both sections.

 

 

Author Response

The comments from Reviewer 3

#1: The synthesis scheme is not clear, and it should be revised in a detailed way.

Response: Thank you for your advice. After reading the introduction section carefully, I indeed found that the logic of proving the innovation point was a bit confusing, and I have completely revised the text of the introduction section. Graphical abstract has also been added to the abstract section to help readers understand the overall structure of our article.

 

#2: The author claimed that their work is a novel investigation, however, myriads of works related to “Mobile thermal energy storage (M-TES) technology“ have been published to date. So, authors should change the way of the presentation focusing on novelty. The introduction should be improved with a paragraph describing the novelty and importance of the work.

Response: Thank you for your advice. The part you mentioned was indeed inappropriate and has been removed in its entirety. The last paragraph of the introduction section has been rewritten to express the innovation and importance of the paper.

 

#3: The authors must carefully claim their novelty in the INTRODUCTION. In addition, the authors need to do some formatting errors that should be carefully checked and corrected in the text.

Response: Your comment is correct. We need to state that the article is innovative. Also some formatting and textual errors have been fixed.

 

#4: The source and purity of all chemicals used should be specified.

Response: Thank you for your advice. No experimental study was conducted in this paper. Only CFD numerical simulations were done. Therefore we assume that the PCM used is the ideal material, 100% pure. For the thermophysical properties of PCM as shown in Table 1, we assume that the thermophysical properties of PCM vary linearly with temperature in two temperature ranges.

 

#5: A summary of key improvements compared to findings in the literature [provide a couple of references to indicate key improvements].

Response: Thank you for your advice. The summary of key improvements has been improved in the INTRODUCTION section.

 

#6: Please provide the comparison table, which you need to prove that your material is superior to previously reported literature.

Response: Thank you for your advice. We have expanded Table 1 and also compared the four PCMs used in the M-TES system.

 

#7: The authors should add some literature descriptions to make the manuscript more convincing. I would like to suggest the authors cite the following relevant articles to enhance the background, supporting the importance of SCs; “Energies, 11 (2018), pp. 3285”, “Nanomaterials, 12 (2022), pp. 3187”

Response: Thank you for your advice. These two articles are really important and have been cited in our paper.

 

#8: The reviewer also suggests that authors get professional English services to correct the grammatical error and refine the expressions in the body of the manuscript.

Response: Thank you for your advice. Indeed, the English expression in the article is not very good, we have carefully modified it again.

 

#9: Authors should be trimmed/condensed the ‘Abstract’ and ‘Conclusion’ sections in the revised manuscript. Please keep highlights of the whole manuscript in both sections.

Response: Thank you for your advice. We have carefully revised both parts, and keep highlights of the whole our paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

It can be accepted in its current format