| Summary: | Water-filled heat stores present a convenient, relatively
inexpensive means of optimising the use of diminishing gas stocks for
the central-heating of buildings. The British Gas Corporation
recently launched a series of central-heating units with storage, for
use in the domestic sector, whose benefits include: -
reduced boiler size,
more efficient boiler operation,
load-levelling at the hours of peak gas demand.
This thesis is divided into three parts. Part I examines the
inherent advantage of a with-storage, domestic, central-heating system
over a conventional system, by means of two simple computer-simulation
programs. A minimum efficiency advantage of about 5% is anticipated;
the variation of this advantage with the values of certain key
parameters has been assessed. Part II is an interim report of a
full-scale field trial in the commercial sector; a large (3.3m3) store
was fitted in the heating system of a London school, and its
performance during the first weeks of its operation is presented here.
Returning to the domestic sector, Part III presents a study of the use
of two integral heat exchangers in the storage vessels of the above
domestic units, whereby hot water can be drawn instantaneously. An
attempt to optimise this domestic hot-water facility has been made.
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