A Three-Dimensional Comprehensive Numerical Investigation of Different Operating Parameters on the Performance of a Photovoltaic Thermal System With Pancake Collector

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Afroza Nahar ◽  
M. Hasanuzzaman ◽  
N. A. Rahim

Performance of photovoltaic (PV) module decreases significantly with increasing cell temperature due to its overheating. Photovoltaic thermal (PVT) is an optimized technology that facilitates effective removal and utilization of this excess heat leading to enhanced electrical performance. In this article, a 3D numerical model has been developed and analyzed to investigate the PVT performance with a new pancake-shaped flow channel design. This flow channel is attached directly to the backside of PV module by using thermal paste. The governing equations are solved numerically by using Galerkin's weighted residual finite-element method (FEM), which has been developed using COMSOL Multiphysics® software. The numerical results show that the cell temperature reduces on an average 42 °C, and the electrical efficiency and output power increase by 2% and 20 W, respectively, for both aluminum and copper channels with an increase in inlet velocity from 0.0009 to 0.05 m/s. On the other hand, overall efficiency of the PVT system drops about 13% in both cases as the inlet temperature increases from 20 °C to 40 °C. Cell temperature is found to increase approximately by 5.4 °C and 9.2 °C for every 100 W/m2 increase in irradiation level of the PV module with and without cooling system, respectively. Regarding flow channel material, it has been observed that use of either copper or aluminum produces almost similar performance of the PVT module.

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Véronique Delisle ◽  
Michaël Kummert

Combined photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors show great potential for reaching the objective of net-zero energy consumption in buildings, but the number of products on the market is still very limited. One of the reasons for the slow market uptake of PV/T collectors is the absence of standardized methods to characterize their performance. Performance characterization is a challenge for PV/T collectors because of the interaction between the thermal and electrical yield. This study addresses this particular issue for PV/T air collectors used in either closed-loop or open-loop configurations. In particular, it presents the potential of the equivalent cell temperature method to determine the temperature of the PV cells in a PV/T air collector and validates models to predict the thermal performance and cell temperature for this particular type of solar collector. Indoor and outdoor experimental tests were performed on two c-Si unglazed PV/T modules. The indoor part of this procedure provided the thermal diode voltage factor and the open-circuit voltage temperature coefficient, two parameters that are essential in the calculation of the equivalent cell temperature. The outdoor procedure consisted of acquiring simultaneous electrical and thermal measurements at various inlet temperatures and flowrates. For the collector used in a closed-loop configuration, thermal efficiency models using the fluid inlet, outlet, or average temperature in the calculation of the reduced temperature provided similar results. For an open-loop configuration, a thermal efficiency model as a function of the fluid outlet flowrate was found to be more appropriate. Using selection of variable methods, it was found that a multiple linear regression model using the fluid inlet temperature, the irradiance, and the fluid outlet temperature as predictive variables could be used to estimate both the PV module back surface average temperature and the equivalent cell temperature. When using the PV temperature predicted by these models in the electrical efficiency model, both PV temperatures showed similar performance. In collectors where the PV back surface temperature is not accessible for temperature sensors mounting, the equivalent cell temperature provides a valuable alternative to be used as the PV temperature. The PV/T collector thermal and electrical performance in either closed-loop or open-loop configurations was found to be encapsulated with a series of five-plots.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alok Dayanand ◽  
Muhsin Aykapadathu ◽  
Nazmi Sellami ◽  
Mehdi Nazarinia

This paper presents the experimental investigation of a novel cross-compound parabolic concentrator (CCPC). For the first time, a CCPC module was designed to simultaneously work as an electricity generator and collect the thermal energy present in the module which is generated due to the incident irradiation. This CCPC module consists of two regions: an absorber surface atop the rig and a reflective region below that to reflect the irradiation onto the photovoltaic (PV) cell, coupled together to form an absorptive/reflective CCPC (AR-CCPC) module. A major issue in the use of PV cells is the decrease in electrical conversion efficiency with the increase in cell temperature. This module employs an active cooling system to decrease the PV cell temperature, optimizing the electrical performance and absorbing the heat generated within the module. This system was found to have an overall efficiency of 63%, which comprises the summation of the electrical and thermal efficiency posed by the AR-CCPC module.


Author(s):  
M. U. Siddiqui ◽  
A. F. M. Arif

Photovoltaic (PV) technology provides a direct method to convert solar energy into electricity. In recent years, the use of PV systems has increased greatly with many applications of PV devices in systems as small as battery chargers to large scale electricity generation systems and satellite power systems. An important factor that influences the reliability of photovoltaic modules is their ability to withstand high thermal stresses which develop in PV modules due to the different coefficients of thermal expansion of the different module materials. PV modules also experience thermal cycles which can lead to failure of the module. In the present work, three dimensional numerical thermal and structural models of a PV module were developed and sequentially coupled together to calculate the temperature distribution in the PV module and the thermal stresses developing in it. The model is also capable of simulating PV module cooling. Using the model, a study was conducted to evaluate the thermal and structural performance of the module with and without cooling and the variation in thermal stress magnitudes with changing environmental conditions (solar radiation and ambient temperature) and operating conditions (heat exchanger inlet temperature and velocity).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ky-Quang Pham ◽  
Quang-Hai Nguyen ◽  
Tai-Duy Vu ◽  
Cong-Truong Dinh

Abstract Gas turbine engine has been widely applied to many heavy industries, such as marine propulsion and aerospace fields. Increasing turbine inlet temperature is one of the major ways to improve the thermal efficiency of gas turbines. Internal cooling for gas turbine cooling system is one of the most commonly used approaches to reduce the temperature of blades by casting various kinds of ribs in serpentine passages to enhance the heat transfer between the coolant and hot surface of gas turbine blades. This paper presents an investigation of boot-shaped rib design to increase the heat transfer performances in the internal cooling turbine blades for gas turbine engines. By varying the design parameter configuration, the airflow is taken with higher momentum, and the minor vortex being at the front rib is relatively removed. The object of this investigation is increasing the reattachment airflow to wall and reducing the vortex occurring near the rib for improving the performances of heat transfer using three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes with the SST model. A parametric study of the boot-shaped rib design was performed using various geometric parameters related to the heel-angle, toe-angle, slope-height and rib-width to find their effect on the Nusselt number, temperature on the ribbed wall, friction factor ratio of the channel and thermal performance factor. The numerical results showed that the heat transfer performances are significantly increased with the heel-angle, toe-angle, slope-height, while that remained relatively constant with the rib-width.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 168781402110599
Author(s):  
Mohamed Bechir Ben Hamida ◽  
Mohammed A. Almeshaal ◽  
Khalil Hajlaoui

The aim of this paper is to ensure proper thermal management in order to remove and dissipate the heat produced by a square Light Emitting Diode (LED), as well as to ensure stable and safe operation by reducing the junction temperature. For this, we developed a three-dimensional code, time-dependent that solves the systems of equations for the mass, momentum, and energy using Comsol Multiphysics. After validation of this numerical 3D code, the thermal performance of a LED cooling system with three nanofluids such as MWCNT-Water, MWCNT-Ethylene Glycol, and MWCNT-Engine oil is studied numerically into account of aggregation effect. Several parameters such as: the power of the LED lamp, the inlet temperature and velocity of nanofluid, the length of the heat sink, and the length of the microchannel have been varied in order to find an optimal condition allowing a good heat dissipation from the LED chip to the heat sink. It was concluded that the use of MWCNT-Water in the microchannel is the best nanofluid that can cool the heat sink. In addition, the increase of velocity inlet of the coolant in the microchannel, the length of the heat sink, and the microchannel length while the decrease of the inlet temperature of nanofluid in the microchannel are an important factors allowing the decrease of the junction temperature of the square LED lamp.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srimanickam Baskaran ◽  
Christopher Sathiya Satchi ◽  
Saranya Amirtharajan ◽  
Metilda Manuel Swami Durai

Abstract Increasing surface temperature significantly affects the electrical performance of photovoltaic (PV) panels. A closed-loop forced circulation serpentine tube design of cooling water system is used to effectively manage the surface temperature of PV panels. A real-time experiment was first carried out with a PV panel with a cooling system at HTF flow rates of 60 kg h-1, 120 kg h-1, and 180 kg h-1. Based on the experimentation, a correlation for a nominal operating cell temperature (NOCT) and thermal efficiency for collector was developed for experimental validation of useful energy gained, cell temperature and electric power generation. The developed corrections are validated with electrical power and useful energy gained in photovoltaic serpentine thermal solar collector (PV/STSC) and fit into experimental results with a deviation of 1% and 2.5 % respectively. Further, with the help of developed correlations, a system was developed in the TRNSYS tool through which an optimization study was performed based on electric and hot water demand. The findings indicate that an optimal system with an 8 m2 PV/STSC area, a HTF flow rate of 60 kg h-1, and TES system having a volume and height of 280 l and 0.8 m could meet 91 % and 33 % of the hot water demand for Ac loads and 78 % or DC loads, respectively.


Author(s):  
Uschas Chowdhury ◽  
Manasa Sahini ◽  
Ashwin Siddarth ◽  
Dereje Agonafer ◽  
Steve Branton

Modern day data centers are operated at high power for increased power density, maintenance, and cooling which covers almost 2 percent (70 billion kilowatt-hours) of the total energy consumption in the US. IT components and cooling system occupy the major portion of this energy consumption. Although data centers are designed to perform efficiently, cooling the high-density components is still a challenge. So, alternative methods to improve the cooling efficiency has become the drive to reduce the cooling cost. As liquid cooling is more efficient for high specific heat capacity, density, and thermal conductivity, hybrid cooling can offer the advantage of liquid cooling of high heat generating components in the traditional air-cooled servers. In this experiment, a 1U server is equipped with cold plate to cool the CPUs while the rest of the components are cooled by fans. In this study, predictive fan and pump failure analysis are performed which also helps to explore the options for redundancy and to reduce the cooling cost by improving cooling efficiency. Redundancy requires the knowledge of planned and unplanned system failures. As the main heat generating components are cooled by liquid, warm water cooling can be employed to observe the effects of raised inlet conditions in a hybrid cooled server with failure scenarios. The ASHRAE guidance class W4 for liquid cooling is chosen for our experiment to operate in a range from 25°C – 45°C. The experiments are conducted separately for the pump and fan failure scenarios. Computational load of idle, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70% and 98% are applied while powering only one pump and the miniature dry cooler fans are controlled externally to maintain constant inlet temperature of the coolant. As the rest of components such as DIMMs & PCH are cooled by air, maximum utilization for memory is applied while reducing the number fans in each case for fan failure scenario. The components temperatures and power consumption are recorded in each case for performance analysis.


Author(s):  
N. Courtois ◽  
F. Ebacher ◽  
P. K. Dubois ◽  
N. Kochrad ◽  
C. Landry ◽  
...  

The use of ceramics in gas turbines potentially allows for very high cycle efficiency and power density, by increasing operating temperatures. This is especially relevant for sub-megawatt gas turbines, where the integration of complex blade cooling greatly affects machine capital cost. However, ceramics are brittle and prone to fragile, catastrophic failure, making their current use limited to static and low-stress parts. Using the inside-out ceramic turbine (ICT) configuration solves this issue by converting the centrifugal blade loading to compressive stress, by using an external high-strength carbon-polymer composite rim. This paper presents a superalloy cooling system designed to protect the composite rim and allow it to withstand operating temperatures up to 1600 K. The cooling system was designed using one-dimensional (1D) models, developed to predict flow conditions as well as the temperatures of its critical components. These models were subsequently supported with computational fluid dynamics and used to conduct a power scalability study on a single stage ICT. Results suggest that the ICT configuration should achieve a turbine inlet temperature (TIT) of 1600 K with a composite rim cooling-to-main mass flow rate ratio under 5.2% for power levels above 350 kW. A proof of concept was performed by experimental validation of a small-scale 15 kW prototype, using a commercially available bismaleimide-carbon (BMI-carbon) composite rim and Inconel® 718 nickel-based alloy. The combination of numerical and experimental results show that the ICT can operate at a TIT of 1100 K without damage to the composite rim.


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