Investigation on the effect of using phase change materials in the wall of solar chimney on natural ventilation of a room

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Abstract

In this study, the usage of phase change materials (PCMs) in the wall of a solar chimney has been investigated analytically and numerically. Effective heat capacity model has been employed to simulate the phase change phenomenon in the PCM. The conservation energy equations for the solar chimney and the storage wall have been written in an unsteady form and solved for 120 hours with a self-developed code. The results show that the latent energy storage provides the 24-hour ventilation by the system even with a poor solar intensity of 350 W/m2. Also it is observed that the usage of PCM instead of concrete in the storage wall reduces the thickness of the wall from 200 mm to 40 mm and also the mass flow rate fluctuation in the channel. In this study, also the effects of the thermophysical properties and the thickness of the PCM on the performance of the system (air change per hour) have been investigated. It is observed that for a particular flux, PCM with lower melting temperature provides more latent heat storage but because of rising surface temperature of the PCM after melting, more fluctuation in the flow rate of the channel is produced. Also the results show that the increasing of the thermal conductivity and the heat of fusion of the PCM for a particular input heat flux, up to specified limit causes better performance of the system but after that the increasing of these parameters, has no influence on the performance of the system.

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References

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Journal of Solid and Fluid Mechanics
Volume 5, Issue 3 - Serial Number 3
September and October 2015
Pages 257-269

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