Suitability analysis of an air heater coupled with PCM made fins

Abstract

The outcomes of an experimental study onthe performance of a Double-Pass typeSolar Air Heater(DPSH) has been presented in the current study. The study was conducted on the DPSH with two set-ups; one set-up was a normal DPSH and another one was the DPSH containing pin-finned absorber and organic phase chaning materials (PCM) based latent heat storing medium (LHSM). The organic wax (PCM) was employed as the LHSM. Further, in the second set-up, the absorbing plateof the DPSH was configured with cylindrical pin fins. Experiments were conducted at 23°48′10″N and 78°48′14″Ein June2022in two different experimental set-upson the sunny days with a comparable radiation. In the investigation, the basic set-up solar air heaterwas directly named as DPSH-Normal and used in the investigations as it is, whereas, the second DPSHsetup was configured with pin-fins and LHSM, and named as DPSH-LHSM. A constant airflow massof 0.185 kg/s was used to facilitate the research. Adding LHSMto the pin-finned DPSHgreatly increased its performance, as shown by the findings. As a result of being coupled with the Pin-fins and LHSM, the DPSH's had displayed the improvedenergy efficiency by 13.56percent.