Flat plate solar air heater with latent heat storage

B. Touati, N. Kerroumi, and J. Virgone

Citation: AIP Conference Proceedings 1814, 020016 (2017); doi: 10.1063/1.4976235

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4976235
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/apc/1814/1
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 Flat Plate Solar Air Heater with Latent Heat Storage
B.Touati1, a), N. Kerroumi1, b), J. Virgone2 c)
1
ENERGARID laboratory, Team of Solar Resources and its Applications (GSA), Tahri Mohammed University,
Bechar, Algeria.
2
Thermal Sciences Center of Lyon (CETHIL, UMR 5008), Lyon 1 University Cedex, France
a)
btouatidz@yahoo.fr
b)
duinakerroumi@gmail.com
c)
joseph.virgone@insa-lyon.fr

Abstract. Our work contains two parts, first is an experimental study of the solar air heater with a simple flow and forced
convection, we can use thatlaste oneit in many engineering’s sectors as solardrying, space heating in particular.The
second part is a numerical study with ansys fluent 15 of the storage of part of this solar thermal energy produced,using
latent heat by using phase change materials (PCM).In the experimental parts, we realize and tested our solar air heater in
URER.MS ADRAR, locate in southwest Algeria. Where we measured the solarradiation, ambient temperature, air flow,
thetemperature of the absorber, glasses and the outlet temperature of the solar air heater from the Sunrise to the sunset.In
the second part, we added a PCM at outlet part of the solar air heater. This PCM store a part of the energy produced in
the day to be used in peak period at evening by using the latent heat where the PCMs present a grateful storagesystem.A
numerical study of the fusion or also named the charging of the PCM using ANSYS Fluent 15, this code use the method
of enthalpies to solve the fusion and solidification formulations. Furthermore, to improve the conjugate heat transfer
between the heat transfer fluid (Air heated in solar plate air heater) and the PCM, we simulate the effect of adding fins to
our geometry. Also, four user define are write in C code to describe the thermophysicalpropriety of the PCM, and the
inlet temperature of our geometry which is the temperature at the outflow of the solar heater.

Key words: Solar air heater; PCM; ANSYSFLUENT15; User define.

INTRODUCTION
South Algeria has a largest solar radiation that exceeds 1000 w/m2. This energy used in many engineering
sectors. Where the use of the solar system givesa great efficiency, the biggest problem of the solar system is in the
evening withoutsun; to solve these mismatch researchers added a storage system.
The solar air flat plat is used for drying medicinal plant, food, heating spaces or in other applications. 35.3 % of
the total energy consumed is used to heat spaces and building[1].To keep our system operating at evening and night,
with similarconditionsof the day, a storage system with phase change materials is adding to our flat plat because
PCMS has biggest specific heat constant compared with water or air.

SOLAR AIR FLAT PLAT WITH PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS

Numerous research studies the adding of PCM to the solar thermal system to get more performance of the solar
thermal system; PCM added to store energy in the day to be used at evening or to use it in the place of the appoint
agent.
Edward K. Summers et al. [2] have implemented the PCM below the absorber plate in an experimental study.
They found that an 8cm of PCM sufficient to produce a consistent output temperature and 35 % of collector
efficiency.

Technologies and Materials for Renewable Energy, Environment and Sustainability

AIP Conf. Proc. 1814, 020016-1–020016-8; doi: 10.1063/1.4976235
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1482-2/$30.00

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V. V. Tyagi [3] presents an experimental and a comparative study of a solar air heater with three types of PCM, and
without phase change material, they found that the use of PCM increases the outlet temperature.
A solar air heater with the packed bed was studied experimentally by Salwa Bouadila et al.[4], they use spherical
capsules of PCM in the packed bed, an energy and exergystudyis presented, their results indicate that the efficiency
varied between 32 and 45 %.
The integration of thermal storage system (paraffin wax) in a double pass solar air heater is studied experimentally
by S.S. Krishnananth [5]; to examine the performance for different configurations. They found that the use of PCM
delivered high temperature.
An energy analysis and a comparative study of solar air heater with and without PCM were presented by Aymen El
Khadraoui et al. [6] in experimentalwork; their result indicates that the use of PCM enhanced the outlet temperature
at night, and the daily energy efficiency reachedto 33%.
S. Esakkimuthuet al. [7] use experimentally inorganic salt ball, to store the solar energy from solar air heater,
they evaluate charging and discharging of the MCP and the effect of the inlet flow and ball sizing.
Ciril ArkarIn et al.[8] studied numerically and experimentallya vacuum airtube solar collector and latentheat
storage to heat a building to findingresponse using the design and thermal modeling
E. Osterman [9] use PCM to store energy for heating and cooling of building with a solar air heater to reduce energy
.the RT22 was the PCM to reduce energy consumption in buildings with anasysfluent 2D numerical model Then
they validation experimental results.
A.E. Kabeel et al.[10] Integrate and testa solar air heater with paraffin wax. They studied the thermal
performance parameters for different flow rate and different design in experimental investigation.
An energy and exergy study accorded to a double-glazed solar air heater designed and studied by Mojtaba
Edalatpour et al.[11],with the use of the paraffin wax as PCM .their results show that the energy efficiency varies
between 58.33% and 68.77%.
Abduljalil A. Al-Abidiet et al. [12]. Added internal and external fins to the triplex tube contain RT82 in desiccation
HVAC installation, and they study numerically and experimentally WKHVROLGL¿FDWLRQRID3&07KH5HVXOWVLQGLFDWH
WKDWWKHXQLWJHRPHWU\ZLWKLQWHUQDODQGH[WHUQDOILQVDFKLHYHGFRPSOHWHVROLGL¿FDWLRQLQDVKRUWWLPH
The influence of the fins structures in the decreasing of the total time of freezing and melting of PCMs or also
named charging and discharging of the PCM is studied by [13], [14], [15], and Velraj et al. [16] Ismail et al. [17]
they fond that the added of fins have a great effect.

THE EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

The solar air collector with the simple pass presented in Fig 1 who inclinedby 27° to the horizontal and a full
south orientation to capture the maximum energy with 193*93 cm length and width respectively.
The area of cover glass is 184*84 cm with thickness 3mm, HPLVVLYLW\ LV İv = 0.88. An absorber plate painted
galvanized Black steel DEVRUEHQF\RIĮ 0.95 for the visible radiation and area 184*84 cm.
The thickness space where the air circulates is 45 mm; the flow of the air is aforced convection. Isolation with
polyurethane havHPPRIWKLFNQHVVDQGWKHWKHUPDOFRQGXFWLYLW\LVȜLVR :PƒK.To measure the air
output flow we use a flow meter and wecalculate the section of the rectangular pipe.

A companion measureis carried during the April 14 from 8 am to 17 with a time step of one minute at Research
unit in Renewable energies in Saharan Medium (URER.MS) ADRAR, locate in southwestAlgeria.Six K-type
thermocouples, measure the air temperature at the output of the heater, the ambient temperature, the temperatures of
the absorber and the temperatures of the glazing. To measure solar radiation, we use Kipp and Zonen a type of
pyranometer. The thermocouples and the pyranometer connected to a Central data acquisition.

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 FIGURE1.The solar air heater realized

THE PCM CAVITY

FIGURE2. Physical model of PCM cavity

Two PCM floor added to our solar system, behind the extraction fan, the air heated by the solar heater, a part of
the energy is used to be stored in the PCM at day, The Fig.2 represent the physical areas of the cavity with PCM.
The PCM floor filled with the RT 25with 2 * 40 cm width and length. To increasing heat transfer between air and
PCM,3*2 fins with dimensions of15*1 mm areadded to our geometry.

GOVERNING EQUATION
To solve the governing equation we used ANSYSFLUENT15 code, where this code based on the enthalpic
method to solve governing equations in the solidification/fusion problem. The Conservation of the mass equation,
momentum, and energy equations given by [12] :

wU pcm
 ’( U pcmu ) 0 (1)
wt

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 wU pcm
 ’( U pcmu … u ) ’V  ( U pcm g ) (2)
wt

w (3)
( U pcm H pcm )  ’.( U pcmuH pcm ) ’.(O’T )
wt

Where ȡpcm,ȝpcm,Hpcm, O ,are thedensity, the dynamic viscosity,Hpcm latent heat and O is the thermal
conductivity of the PCM.

The Hpcmexpressed as:

H pcm hpcm  'H pcm (4)
T
 ³
ref
hpcm hpcm cp pcm dT (5)
Tref

ref
Where hpcm is the reference enthalpy and cpmcp is specific heat at constant pressure.

The liquid fraction is definedas:

'H pcm EL (6)

ȕ change from 0 to 1 so it can be written as:

­
°
°0 forT % Tsol
°
E ®1 forT Tliqui
°
° T  T sol
forTsol % T % Tliqui
°
¯ Tliqui  Tsol

Constitutive relations
The ȡpcm of RT25 is given by[18]:
Uf
U pcm (7)
0.001(T  Tliqui )  1

Where 0.001 represent thermal expansion coefficient studied by Humphries and Griggs (1977) and U f is
density of PCM at temperature of melting .

The PCM viscosity is defined by Reid et al. formula (1987):

(8)
P mcp 0.001exp( 4.25  1790 / T )

The MCP chosen for this study is RT25 and copper where the thermophysical properties [19] are given in
Table1.

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 TABLE 1. Thermo-physical properties of the PCM

Property RT25 Copper

ȡVNJP 785 8978
ȡONJP 749 -
Cpl, Cps (J/kg K) 2400, 1800 381
L (j/kg) 232000 -
Melting temperature, Tm(°K) 299.6 -
Thermal conductivity , solid, liquid (W/mk) 0.19 ,0.18 387.6
Dynamic viscosity (kg/ms) 1.798*10-3 -

NUMERICAL MODELLING
In ANSYSFLUENT 15, the under-relaxation factors forpressure,velocity, energy, and liquid fraction are 0.3,
0.2, 1, and 0.9, respectively.Also, PRESTO schemais used,the time steps1 s
The MCP grid sizes, including 57600 cell for the air, 32000 *2 for the MCP,four User-defined functions (UDF)
written in C language to account for the temperature - dependence of the thermo-physical properties of RT 25and
the inlet temperature at cavity witch is the outlet temperature of the solar heater.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

(a) (b)
FIGURE3. The radiation intensity (a) and the ambient temperature (b) for the April 14 at Adar city

The fig3a and b show the solar radiation intensity and the ambient temperature variations measured during April
14 at Adrar city. The solar radiation maximum exceeds1000 W/m2, and The ambient temperature was between 20
and 45 °C. The no stable at the result it causing by the vibration of the extracting fan.

We use four thermocouples to measure the temperature, two in glass covering and two at absorber. The fig4
show us temperature for different parts where all the temperatures are varying with radiation. The temperature of the
absorber are more than glass, the maximum temperature of absorber plate is around 55 and 65 °C. For the glass the
maximum temperature around 47 °C.

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 FIGURE 4. Temperature of glass and absorber of the solar air heater

FIGURE 5. The ambient and the outlet temperature

FIGURE 6. Liquid Fraction versus time for the cavity without fins

The ambient and the outlet temperature of solar air heater is given by the fig5, the outlet temperature is reached
by more than 3 ° with the use of the extraction fan, and she is varying with the radiation intensity. This outlet

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temperature it use to be the inlet temperature of the PCM storage cavity. Moreover, we calculate the flow at the
cavity inlet using the conservation equation.

In the first time we simulate with ANSYSFLUENT15 our PCM cavity, each floor has 2 cm thickness. Fig 6
represents the Liquid Fraction versus time of the PCM charging (melting) for the cavity without fins. As we can see
the high floor liquefy faster than the bottom one, this is due to the density effect.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 7. Liquid fraction average of charging of the PCM for the cavity with PCM (a), the contour of liquid fraction
distribution at t = 12:00 (b)

The time evolution of fusion of PCM with fins is presented in fig7 .where; we use three fins on each floor to
increase the thermal exchange between the air and the PCM. At 15h the bottom floor of PCM contains 58% of liquid
and the 70% for the higher, one.Also, the figure shows the contour of the liquid fraction during the charging of the
MCP at 12:00. Where the MCP contain 27%, of liquid for the higher floor and 24 % for the lower one.

FIGURE 8. Liquid fraction in PCM at the higher floor with and without PCM

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 Fig 8 represents comparison studies between the using of fins and without using them. It found that the storage
unit with fins performs better as compared to without fins. This is expected since the addition of the fin will enhance
the heat transfer surface and improve the heat transfer rate.

CONCLUSION
Our work consisted to study experimentally, a solar air heater with a simple pass and a numerical study of the
adding of storage energy using latent heat (PCM) system.
We measure the air temperature at the output of the heater, the ambient temperature, the temperatures of glass
and absorber during the April 14 at Adrar city.
Thanwe simulate numerically with ansys fluent 15 a storage cavity, contain PCM at the outlet of the solar air
heater and test the effect of the fins adding intoourcavity.
The use of fins increases the heat exchange surface between the air and the PCM and also increase the energy
stored
Prospectsare to study the effect of the adding PCM on the outlet temperature for 24 hours to optimize the area of the
MCP must be used to replace the electrical appoint system.

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