As part of a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) The project is in the context of thermal storage power plants, which convert renewable generated electricity into heat and store it in high temperature molten salt tanks. On demand, electricity can be generated from the stored energy and released to the grid. Molten salt is used as the heat transfer media and storage medium, heated by electric resistance heaters. A critical design parameter of this system is the heat transfer between electric heater and molten salt. In order to achieve high efficiency while reliably preventing of failure of the heating elements, an accurate knowledge of the heat transfer coefficients is required.

The aim of the advertised work (internship or bachelor / master thesis) is the planning, construction and operation of a test rig which allows the investigation of the heat transfer of electric heating elements to liquid salt (solar salt) in the temperature range of up to 565 °C. Together with the colleagues of the project team you will implement the already done conceptual design of the measuring cell into practice.

Your tasks:

• accompanying the production of the test bench and identifying suppliers of required components
• assembly of the test bench in the laboratories of the DLR site in Cologne
• design of experiments and planning of measurement data acquisition
• carrying out preliminary tests and tests on the test stand
• scientific evaluation