Thermal Analysis of a Solar Wall Equipped to Nano Phase Change Material

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran

2 Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory of Renewable Energies and Electromagnetic Fluids, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran

Abstract

In this paper, the thermal analysis of a solar wall equipped to nano phase change material is carried out, numerically. The governing equation of transient heat conduction is solved by a finite difference technique based on enthalpy method. The validation of numerical results of present study is carried out with the experimental data. There is a fair agreement between numerical results and experimental data. In parametric studies the volume fraction effect of carbon nano tubes and alumina nano particles and the thickness of phase change material is investigated. Present study results showed that suitable improvement in solar wall thermal performance is obtained due to the addition of carbon nano tubes and alumina nano particles to base phase change material. However, carbon nano tubes yield better performance. Performance improvement reasons include the increase of heat transfer speed due to the increase of thermal conductivity and the completion of melting and solidification process. Occurrences resultant leads to a 9% increase in the thermal efficiency of solar wall for 3% volume fraction of carbon nano tubes. Generally, the results of present study give the possibility of the design of a solar wall equipped to phase change material with about 40% of thermal efficiency.

Keywords

Main Subjects


[1] Zalewski, L., Joulin, A., Lassue, S., Dutil, Y. and Rousse, D., 2012. “Experimental study of small-scale solar wall integrating phase change material”. Solar Energy, 86, pp. 208-219.
[2] Kara, Y.A. and Kurnuç, A., 2012. “Performance of coupled novel triple glass and phase change material wall in the heating season: an experimental study”. Solar Energy, 86(9), pp. 2432-2442.
[3] Trombe, F., Robert, J.F., Cabanot, M. and Sesolis, B., 1977. “Concrete walls to collect and hold heat”. Solar Age, 2(8), pp. 13-19.
[4] Onishi, J., Soeda, H. and Mizuno, M., 2001. “Numerical study on a low energy architecture based upon distributed heat storage system”. Renewable Energy, 22, pp. 61-66.
[5] Khodadadi, J.M. and Hosseinizadeh, S.F., 2007. “Nanoparticle-enhanced phase change materials (NEPCM) with great potential for improved thermal energy storage”. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer, 34, pp. 534-543.
[6] Briga-Sá, A., Martins, A., Boaventura-Cunha, J., Lanzinha, J.C. and Paiva, A., 2014. “Energy performance of Trombe walls: Adaptation of ISO 13790: 2008 (E) to the Portuguese reality”. Energy and Buildings, 74, pp. 111-119.
[7] Abbassi, F. and Dehmani, L., 2015. “Experimental and numerical study on thermal performance of an unvented Trombe wall associated with internal thermal fins”. Energy and Buildings, 105, pp. 119-128.
[8] Hernández-López, I., Xamán, J., Chávez, Y., Hernández-Pérez, I. and Alvarado-Juárez, R., 2016. “Thermal energy storage and losses in a room-Trombe wall system located in Mexico”. Energy, 109, pp. 512-524.
[9] Yu, G., Zhao, P., Chen, D. and Jin, Y., 2017. “Experimental verification of state space model and thermal performance analysis for active solar walls”. Solar Energy, 142, pp. 109-122.
[10] Fan, L., 2011. “Enhanced Thermal Conductivity and Expedited Freezing of Nanoparticle Suspensions Utilized as Novel Phase Change Materials”. PhD Thesis, Auburn University; 2011.
[11] Yamada, E. and Ota, T., 1980. “Effective thermal conductivity of dispersed materials”. Heat and Mass Transfer, 13(1), pp. 27-37.
[12] Nan, C.W., Liu, G., Lin, Y. and Li, M., 2004. “Interface effect on thermal conductivity of carbon nanotube composites”. Applied Physics Letters, 85(16), pp. 3549-3551.
[13] Song, P.C., Liu, C.H. and Fan, S.S., 2006. “Improving the thermal conductivity of nanocomposites by increasing the length efficiency of loading carbon nanotubes”. Applied Physics Letters, 88(15), pp. 153111.
[14] Zheng, Y. and Hong, H., 2007. “Modified model for effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids containing carbon nanotubes”. Journal of thermophysics and heat transfer, 21(3), pp. 658-660.
[15] Harish, S., Ishikawa, K., Einarsson, E., Aikawa, S., Chiashi, S., Shiomi, J. and Maruyama, S., 2012. “Enhanced thermal conductivity of ethylene glycol with single-walled carbon nanotube inclusions”. International Journal of heat and mass transfer, 55(13), pp. 3885-3890.
[16] Pop, E., Mann, D., Wang, Q., Goodson, K. and Dai, H., 2006. “Thermal conductance of an individual single-wall carbon nanotube above room temperature”. Nano letters, 6, pp. 96-100.
[17] Arasu, A.V., Sasmito, A.P. and Mujumdar, A.S., 2011. “Thermal performance enhancement of paraffin wax with Al2O3 and CuO nanoparticles–a numerical study”. Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer (FHMT), 2(4), pp. 043005.
[18] Voller, V. and Cross, M., 1981. “Accurate solutions of moving boundary problems using the enthalpy method”. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 24(3), pp. 545-556.
[19] Crank, J., 1987. Free and moving boundary problems. Oxford University Press.
[20] Bergman, T.L. and Incropera, F.P., 2011. Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. 7th ed., John Wiley & Sons.
[21] Hone J. Carbon nanotubes: thermal properties. In: Schwarz, J.A., Contescu, C.I. and Putyera, K. editors, 2004. Dekker encyclopedia of nanoscience and nanotechnology (Vol. 3). CRC press.
[22] Younsi, Z., Zalewski, L., Rousse, D., Joulin, A. and Lassue, S., 2008. “Thermophysical characterization of phase change materials with heat flux sensors”. In Proceedings of 5th European thermal-sciences conference, Nederlands.
[223] Vajjha, R.S., Das, D.K. and Namburu, P.K., 2010. “Numerical study of fluid dynamic and heat transfer performance of Al2O3 and CuO nanofluids in the flat tubes of a radiator”. International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow, 31(4), pp. 613-621.
[24] Alawadhi, E.M., 2008. “Thermal analysis of a building brick containing phase change material”. Energy and Buildings, 40(3), pp. 351-357.