Numerical investigation of the effect of the shape of the cooling chamber containing paraffin phase change material on the performance of solar panels

Authors

Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

10.22044/jsfm.2025.14245.3843

Abstract

Nowadays, due to the high importance of energy and fossil fuel limitations, the use of renewable energies has become very important. Considering that the efficiency of solar panels decreases with increasing temperature, the importance of cooling the panels is necessary and important. Accordingly, considering previous research in the field of using phase change materials as a method of cooling solar panels, the cooling performance of PureTemp29 as a phase change material in different geometries, which has not been investigated so far, is investigated. The simulation was performed using the finite element method in the ANSYS APDL software. The chambers with simple and finned geometries were characterized in two-dimensional and three-dimensional modes. The results showed that the efficiency of the finned chamber is better than other chambers due to the appropriate temperature distribution in different parts of the phase change material. In order to validate the temperature outputs at different times in the finned geometry, they were compared with a previous experimental study and it was found that the simulation has good accuracy.

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Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Solid and Fluid Mechanics
Volume 15, Issue 1
March and April 2025
Pages 105-116

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