A Similarity Principle Research Method for Solar Heating System with Seasonal Water Tank Heat Storage

In this paper, a similarity principle research method is proposed to research the solar heating system with seasonal water tank heat storage (SHS-SWTHS). In this method, the similarity principle is applied to build a model. The time period of the model is one hundredth of the prototype, and the volume of the model is one thousandth of the prototype. Then, the numerical and experimental researches on the SHS-SWTHS system can be implemented based on this model, which has the following advantages compared with the prototype: (1) the computation time can be shortened largely, (2) the investment and experiment period can be decreased greatly. In this paper the feasibility of this model is verified by the numerical researches, in which the PISO algorithm is adopted to compute the fluid flow and heat transfer in the water tank and the coupled heat transfer between the water tank and the surrounding soil. The result will lay a foundation for the further numerical and experimental researches based on the model.