Analysis of Solar Water Heater with Modification Absorber Plate Integrated Thermal Storage

Abstract

In various countries worldwide, solar water heater systems (SWHs) are utilized as devices that harness solar energy as a primary energy source. This study investigates the performance of SWHs numerical simulation by integrating phase change material (PCM) paraffin wax onto an absorber plate collector at the bottom for thermal storage. This study presents the thermal performance of a SWHs that uses an absorber plate with PCM for thermal energy storage. In this test, four variations of the model tested, namely a) standard flat plate (SFP), b) standard flat plate with PCM storage thickness 10mm (SFP+PCM 10mm), c) standard flat plate with PCM storage thickness 7mm (SFP+PCM 7mm), and d) standard flat plate with PCM storage thickness 4mm (SFP+PCM 4mm), were investigated using numerical simulation. Initially, an analytical investigation was conducted to examine the material qualities of paraffin wax utilised for phase change material (PCM) storage. The SWH systems were subsequently imported and simulated under three different levels of continuous solar radiation: 400 W/m2 700 W/m2 and 1000 W/m2. The simulation incorporates the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools. The results of the study revealed that the collector of the SWH system, which utilised an absorber plate containing phase change material (PCM) storage, demonstrated exceptional performance. Models with a thickness of 7mm PCM or SFP+PCM 7mm have the highest efficiency compared to other models with an efficiency value of 64%. There is a 3-4% increase in efficiency with variations in models that use PCM thermal storage compared to models that do not use PCM thermal storage.