Abstract
One of the most investigated and broadly used mediums in the solar thermal storage systems is using phase change materials. In this research, a comprehensive performance test bench for solar thermal utilization system using a controllable heater to substitute different levels of solar input was established. The test bench is not limited by the weather and equipped with alternative heat storage tanks for different PCMs. The heat storage structure and the performance of paraffin in low temperature system was examined using numerical simulation method. The results showed that the heating power received by PCM was stable at 6–8 kW under the heating condition of 85 °C. At the stage of incompletely melting, the temperature difference between the inside and outside was as high as 31.6, which can reduce the loss of heat to a great extent.
Highlights
Solar thermal utilization is one of the most promising renewable energy resources
A useful model was developed based on the combi nation of the solar photovoltaic thermal collectors (PVT) and flat panel solar collectors (FPC), which produced as high as 1420 W power, 75% thermal efficiency and 12.72% exergy efficiency
The heat is carried by the heat transfer oil to the pipeline in the heat storage tank, and transferred to the outer wall of the tube and a series of fins to complete the heating of the paraffin
Summary
Solar thermal utilization is one of the most promising renewable energy resources. the medium and low temperature solar collectors have the advantages of simple structure and low cost, the intermittentness and instability greatly limit its development. Pirasaci and Goswami [23] studied the influence of the structural design, storage time, working fluid flow rate and other factors on the PCM heat storage efficiency by numerical analysis, and evaluated the PCM performance in the latent heat storage unit of a direct steam power plant. Most existing researches of PCMs still adopted numerical simulations, and there are much fewer studies that combine simulation with experiment which is an important way to verify the simulation models To this avail, this study performs the simulation analysis and experimental verification to analyze the PCM performance in a specially designed energy storage structure from two aspects of sensible heat and latent heat for different levels of solar heat
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