Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of radiation effects on the thermal behavior of a packed bed using a discrete model for heat transfers integrating a novel method called Layer View Factor for view factors estimation, which significantly decreases computational time by less than 9000 times compared to the parallel ray tracing method. The model is validated and strongly aligned with experimental data at 823 K, with a maximum mean bias and root mean square errors of +/- 4.5 K and 10 K, respectively. Analyses of temperature profiles and thermocline lengths for charging, discharging, and stand-by processes at a charge temperature of 1473 K were performed, finding a thermal flattening effect with radiation, leading to lower peak temperatures and quicker thermocline length evolutions. Notably, the stand-by process exhibited the largest impact, with a maximum temperature difference of up to 100 K compared to the non-radiation case. Moreover, analysis of the temperature and energy of discharge found that the maximum discharge temperature drops below 90% of the charge temperature when radiation is included. Finally, efficiency analysis of the processes showed differences of up to 2% between having or not the radiation effect, aiming its role as a redistribution mechanism in the packed bed's temperature.