Bio
Dr. Adeyanju Anthony Ademola is an academic affiliated with Ekiti State University, Nigeria. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering (Thermofluid/Energy) from the University of the West Indies.
Educational Journey
University of the West Indies
PhD • Mechanical Engineering (Thermofluid/Energy)
Experience
Research
Energy Analysis of Simultaneous Charging and Discharging Concrete Bed Storage System
One of the major challenges with the use of solar thermal energy is the intermittent nature. As such, present day research is geared towards energy storage systems in which thermal energy is stored during the day for later use. However, in many engineering applications there is a continuous steady demand for energy. Experiments were conducted using concrete mix of 1: 1.2: 1.1 of cement, sharp-sand and limestone, respectively, plus 20g of 5cm length steel fibers which has a thermal conductivity of 2.46 W/mK and storage capacity of 3.24 x 106 J/m3 K. A laboratory packed bed prototype was built and test conducted for simultaneous charging, storage and discharging for an intermittent energy input. From the experimental results, the energy transfer of the packed bed system was analyzed and it was discovered that energy stored, charged and discharged increases with airflow rates. Spherical shaped concrete of diameter 0.11m exhibited the highest thermal energy storage efficiency of 60.5% at airflow rate of 0.013 m3/s.
Optimization of Packed Concrete Bed Energy Storage System
One of the major challenges with the use of solar thermal energy is the intermittent nature. As such, present day research is geared towards energy storage systems in which thermal energy is stored during the day for later use. However, in many engineering applications there is a continuous steady demand for energy. Hence, this study is focused on the optimization of a packed bed energy storage system to provide an uninterrupted continuous supply of energy in the absence of or availability of solar energy. A mathematical model was developed from consideration of the basic phenomena of heat transfer to predict the thermal behavior of a simultaneous charging, storage and discharging system during a heating cycle. Optimization of the entire storage system were carried out and it was discovered that the ratio of optimum volume to area at airflow rate of 0.0094, 0.012, 0.014, 0.017, 0.019, 0.021, 0.024, 0.026, 0.028, 0.031, 0.033, 0.035, 0.038, 0.040, 0.042 and 0.045m3/s were 0.123, 0.154, 0.185, 0.215, 0.247, 0.276, 0.308, 0.338, 0.369, 0.4, 0.43, 0.462, 0.491, 0.523, 0.554, and 0.584, respectively.
Thermal Analysis of Concrete Bed for Energy Storage Application
This study analyzed theoretically the temperature distribution and energy storage ability of a simultaneous charging and discharging concrete bed Storage System. This was achieved by first modeled a single spherical shaped concrete which was used to represent a sequence of points along the axis of the beds. A one dimensional finite difference formulation was used in modeling the single spherical shaped concrete material, where heat conduction to neighboring spherical concrete was ignored. Using this assumption reduced the spherical shaped concrete model to that of an isolated sphere in cross flow, where the total surface area of the sphere was exposed to convection. The thermal properties of the materials within the bed accounted for temperature dependence. Comparisons were made between charging and discharging mode of the storage system for air flow rates of 0.0094m3/s, 0.013m3/s, and 0.019m3/s. It was discovered that the difference of the temperature response between the charging and fluid to solid heat transfer process at the initial period of the packed bed was large and the heat recovered by the cool air flowing inside the copper tube was fairly high (larger inlet–outlet temperature difference compared with the later period indicates larger heat recovery). The energy storage efficiency was also analyzed and it was discovered that spherical shaped concrete of 0.11m diameter has the highest storage efficiency of 60.5% at 0.013 m3/s airflow rate.
Economic Analysis of Combined Concrete Bed Energy Storage and Solar Collector System
Energ y economics is a specialized field used to make decisions on energy purchases, selection of competing energy generation technologies, and financing of energy technologies. This study carried out the economic analysis of combined packed bed energy storage and solar collector system byusingthe design and operational parameters such as concrete bed size, cylindrical cross sectional area, concrete size, air flow rate and void fraction.This was accomplished by investigating the effects of the above parameters on the total energy stored and the blower cost together with daily storage system cost per unit energy stored in the concrete bed for the winter climatic conditions of Trinidad. Spherical shaped concrete of three different sizes were used in this analysis over varying air flow rate. It was discovered that spherical shaped concrete of size 0.065m diameter has the highest blower cost of $TT37.83/day at 0.045m3/s due to low porosity and high pressure drop while concrete size 0.11m diameter has the lowest blower cost of $TT0.16/day at 0.0094m3/s.Also, spherical shaped concrete of size 0.065m diameter has the highest storage system daily cost of $TT38.83/day at 0.045m3/s while concrete size 0.11m diameter has the lowest daily cost of $TT1.16/day at 0.0094m3/s.
