Impact of PCM type on photocell performance using heat pipe-PCM cooling system: A numerical study

Authors : Ramadan GAD, Hatem MAHMOUD, Shinichi OOKAWARA, Hamdy HASSAN

Pages : 67-88

Doi:10.30521/jes.1159281

View : 16 | Download : 13

Publication Date : 2023-03-31

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The effectiveness of a hybrid cooling system consisting of flat heat pipes insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(HP); and a heat sink of phase change material insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(PCM); for the temperature regulation of the photocell insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(PV); is studied. The system is mathematically modeled and numerically solved by using MatLab software. The impact of the type of PCM insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(RT25, RT35, and RT42); in summer on the performance of the hybrid photocell cooling system is analyzed. Results prove that the HP-PCM cooling system performs better than the natural photocell cooling. PCM with a low melting point is more efficient for electric performance than a high melting point. For a given PCM thickness of 4 cm, the maximum temperature of the photocell is reduced by 8.7 °C when PCM RT25 is used as a heat sink compared to 7.5 °C and 7.3 °C for RT35 and RT42, respectively. RT25-based PV/HP-PCM system outperformed a conventionally cooled photocell in terms of electrical efficiency by 5.3%. In comparison, RT35 and RT42 yield incremental gains of 5% and 4.5 %, respectively. As the PCM melting point is lowered, the hourly thermal efficiency increases with a peak of 48.9% for RT25, 33.7% for RT35, and 32.2% for RT42, respectively.
Keywords : Cooling, Heat pipe, Phase change material, Photocell, Thermal efficiency, Thermal storage