Numerical study of the thermal energy storage behaviour of a novel composite PCM/Concrete wall integrated solar collector

Abstract

Continuous increases in the environmental problem of using fossil fuels including climate change, air pollution, oil spills, and acid rain. The inexhaustible solar energy is the most suitable available energy source to substitute those toxic conventional energy sources. but for many year’s solar energy downs sides are that it is often unpredictable and peak solar irradiations is mismatched with peak’s demands. So, it’s essential to develop efficient, economical solar thermal energy storage (TES). in most patterns of domestic application such as solar water heating systems that have been widely used around the world for many years and maintaining buildings comfort levels, there are still many options to increase the efficiency of these systems using thermal energy storage (TES). As such an introduction of a novel hybrid composite PCM/concrete wall integrating a plan solar water heater is presented. The studied system consists of a three layered composite PCM/concrete wall, the middle layer is the paraffin wax PCM with a thickness of em = 2 cm the total length of the wall is L = 20 cm the outer interface is directly coupled with a solar water heat absorber. The boundary conditions on the outer surface of the glass cover are due to the combined effects of solar radiation and ambient air convection. Meteorological data for every one hour in Casablanca city, Morocco (33°36′N, 07°36′W) are used. the transmitted heat is transferred to the water causing a gradual increase in its temperature which causes the melting of PCM inside the concrete wall leading to the maximum benefit of using latent heat storage techniques. in such solar thermal energy systems. A mathematical model has been developed to assess the effect of PCM position on its latent heat storage. The equations that govern the problem are treated using the finite volume method.