ANALYSIS OF PHASE CHANGE THERMAL STORAGE CONFIGURATIONS FOR MINICHANNEL-BASED SOLAR COLLECTORS

摘要

Solar thermal collectors are efficient components that provide hot water for residential and commercial use. Over the years many techniques and approaches have been proposed in order to improve the efficiency of these systems. One of the improvements suggested has been the use of minichannel tubes as the absorber for a flat plate collector which has been found to be more efficient than a conventional flat plate collector. These collectors have received attention recently with significant research pertaining to enhancing performance. This paper discusses the effect of incorporating a Phase Change Material (PCM) storage system within an aluminum based solar collector. Three different configurations of integrating the PCM next to the aluminum minichannel based absorber plate have been analyzed. The simulations are performed in COMSOL Multiphysics®and the results analyzed to determine the most efficient configuration.