Abstract
Photovoltaic (PV) panel, coupled with phase change material (PCM), has attracted broad attention for the panel's thermal management. Despite the higher energy storage capability of PCMs, the main disadvantage is their low thermal conductivity which is compensated to an extent with the nano-enhanced PCMs (NEPCMs). In this study, numerical simulations are carried out to compare the natural convection phenomena and thermal response of PV-NEPCM with simple PV-PCM for various tilt angles. CuO nanoparticles with a 4% volume concentration are selected for NEPCM. The thermal performance of PV-NEPCM at inclinations of 0°, 15°, 30°, and 45\(^\circ\) are compared with a simple PV-PCM system. The average temperature of PV, liquid fraction and thermal energy stored in PCM, the PV efficiency are compared for PV-PCM and PV-NEPCM systems. Results show that the loading of nanoparticles increases the conduction heat transfer inside PCM. It has also been shown that at lower inclinations, the use of NEPCM is more effective due to the dominance of conduction heat transfer. At higher tilt angles, natural convection plays a significant role in the heat transfer mechanism inside PCM. By using NEPCM, the maximum decrease in PV temperature of 1.11\(℃\) and maximum improvement in the liquid fraction (7.6%) are achieved when \({\theta }=0^\circ\) compared to simple PCM. Enhancement of thermal energy stored in PCM increases slightly upon adding nanoparticles, and the highest improvement is obtained for \({\theta }=0^\circ .\) Maximum enhancement of PV efficiency is found to be 1.6% for \({\theta }=0^\circ\) inclination on adding nanoparticles at a fraction of 4 vol.%. Keywords: PV, nano-enhanced PCM, nanoparticles, natural convection, liquid fraction.
HEAT TRANSFER ANALYSIS FOR LI-ION BATTERY PACKAGE WITH A HYBRID THERMAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL AND FORCED CONVECTION