Numerical and Experimental Study of Heat Transfer in a BIPV-Thermal System

This paper presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study of a building-integrated photovoltaic thermal (BIPV∕T) system, which generates both electricity and thermal energy. The heat transfer in the BIPV∕T system cavity is studied with a two-dimensional CFD model. The realizable k‐ε model is used to simulate the turbulent flow and convective heat transfer in the cavity, including buoyancy effect and long-wave radiation between boundary surfaces is also modeled. A particle image velocimetry (PIV) system is employed to study the fluid flow in the BIPV∕T cavity and provide partial validation for the CFD model. Average and local convective heat transfer coefficients are generated with the CFD model using measured temperature profile as boundary condition. Cavity temperature profiles are calculated and compared to the experimental data for different conditions and good agreement is obtained. Correlations of convective heat transfer coefficients are generated for the cavity surfaces; these coefficients are necessary for the design and analysis of BIPV∕T systems with lumped parameter models. Local heat transfer coefficients, such as those presented, are necessary for prediction of temperature distributions in BIPV panels.