The effect of triangular phase change material rods in the air conditioning duct on the amount of energy required for a residential building

Abstract

In this paper, a building air conditioning channel was simulated. In the channel, a number of rods made of phase-change material with triangular arrangement were placed. The air flow in the channel melts the phase change material during the day. During the night, the energy stored in the phase change material was used to heat the building. For this purpose, a building was designed and the amount of energy required was estimated using carrier software. This study investigated the effect of PCM rod diameter at different hours on the air outlet temperature as well as the amount of molten PCM. The effect of Reynolds number change was also studied. Fluent software is used for simulation. The results of this study showed that increasing the pipe diameter increases the PCM melting time thus requiring more time for the PCM charge. The effect of changing the inlet temperature on the melting time of PCM in diameter 30 mm is more than other diameters. Changing Reynolds from 200 to 1000 reduces the melting time of PCM in 10 mm diameter rod by 71%. Increasing the inlet temperature but decreasing the PCM melting time and increasing the PCM average temperature. It is possible to use up to 49% of the home heating energy from that system by using the 30 mm pipe in Reynolds 1000 in February, and this amount can be saved in energy consumption.