A comparative investigation of the effect of honeycomb core on the latent heat storage with PCM in solar air heater

Abstract

The aims of this study were to comparatively investigate the effect of using PCM and honeycomb as the internal fin structure in the PCM panel on the thermal performance of solar air heater. The tests performed at six air mass flow rates from 0.008 to 0.048 kg/s. The heat storage material was tested in two forms, PCM with honeycomb core in the first heater (Type I) and only PCM in the second heater (Type II). The third heater (Type III) with a flat absorber plate (without PCM) was used for comparison. The average day-time thermal efficiency of the Type I-II heaters with PCM increased from 8.4% to 9.0% for the mass flow rates of 0.032, 0.04, and 0.048 kg/s, while from 0.8% to 8.0% decreased for the mass flow rates of 0.008, 0.016 and 0.024 kg/s. The use of honeycomb as the internal fin structure significantly reduces the charge-discharge time, while slightly reducing the instantaneous-daily thermal efficiency, and provides a temperature increase of up to 8.8 °C at the PCM-temperature. The daily thermal efficiency comparison between heaters with PCM was in favor of the heater without honeycomb at values ranging from 0.1% to 4.4%. Taking into consideration the daily thermal efficiency, the Type I-II heaters with PCM are more efficient between from 2.6 to 22.3%, especially at high mass flow rates. It took approximately one hour to equal the outlet air temperature of the Type-III with the inlet air temperature. In PCM heaters, the inlet-outlet temperatures are approximately equal to 6 to 10 h.