Induction heating of firebricks for the large-scale storage of nuclear and renewable energy
Name
1079908302-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
18.92 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ce6a0e0aa9e1bd5b391f28e9373045a3
Author(s)
Ibekwe, Richard Tochi
Advisor(s)
Charles Forsberg and Ahmed Ghoniem.
Date Issued
2018
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The lack of low-cost, large-scale energy storage is one of the biggest obstacles to the ongoing transition from an energy market dominated by fossil fuels to one dominated by nuclear and renewable energy. Storing energy as heat in firebricks has a number of potential advantages over existing energy storage methods such as batteries and pumped-storage. This work investigated the application of induction heating to firebrick energy storage. The distributions of magnetic field and temperature in firebricks under induction heating were simulated and compared with experiments. It was found that firebricks can be induction heated to high temperatures (>700°C); different material compositions give different temperature responses; and rate of temperature increase is positively correlated with electrical conductivity. It was also shown that, in addition to use in large-scale energy storage, induction heating can be used to measure electrical conductivity and for firebrick quality assurance.
Description
Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2018.
Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2018.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 40).
Subjects
Nuclear Science and Engineering.
Mechanical Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
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