Introducing advanced testing methods for domestic hot water storage tanks in Jordan

In Solar Domestic Hot Water (SDHW) systems the usage of hot water storage tanks is absolutely essential, and, the thermal behaviour of these tanks has a large influence on the efficiency of the entire system. To assess this influence, as well as to improve the quality of the storage tanks, it is very important to determine its parameters. Through a technical co-operation project between the Royal Scientific Society (RSS) in Amman and the Technical University of Munich (TU) (sponsored by the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe), work was carried out: • — to apply a new development in storage testing to the existing facility at the RSS • — to examine its applicability • — to examine its reproducibility to local storage tanks made in Jordan. This paper presents the above referenced work including a description of the storage test facility and the applied ‘dynamic system testing’ procedure, which is based on the transient system simulation TRNSYS and the program for dynamic fitting DF. Through the testing of two storage tanks, it became evident that another test sequence was needed to determine the thermal vertical conductivity in the storage tanks. A new test sequence was proposed and tested to determine this parameter, which has a profound influence on the determination of certain other parameters.