Design of a Water Tank with Floating Plate and Furl-canister and Research on Its Internal Moving,Heat and Mass Transfer Performance

In many water tanks in heat pump systems,there has cold-hot water contact which causes irreversible heat loss.In order to reduce such heat loss,a new water tank with floating plate and furl-canister was designed and fabricated.The floating plate and furl-canister structure was used to separate cold water and hot water and store them in two chambers respectively that avoids the direct contact of cold water and hot water.The internal moving performance of floating plate,the hot water supply temperature and the mass transfer between the upper and lower chambers of the water tank were tested.The experimental results showed that the floating plate and the furl-canister can move up and down in the water tank freely.The static drift of the floating plate is small and its moving velocity in working process is steady.The new structure decreases the heat loss in the water tank efficiently.There still exists weak mass transfer between the upper and lower chambers of the water tank,so the materials and the fabrication technique of the floating plate and the furl-canister need to be further improved.