European Journal of Scientific Research

ISSN 1450-216X Vol.27 No.3 (2009), pp.334-341

© EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009
http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm

Output Air Temperature Prediction in a Solar Air Heater

Integrated with Phase Change Material

M. M. Alkilani
Solar Energy Research Institute, University Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
E-mail: mmk@vlsi.eng.ukm.my
Web: http://pkukmweb.ukm.my/~SERI/index

K. Sopian
Solar Energy Research Institute, University Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Web: http://pkukmweb.ukm.my/~SERI/index

Sohif Mat
Solar Energy Research Institute, University Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600, Bang, , Selangor, Malaysia
Web: http://pkukmweb.ukm.my/~SERI/index

M. A. Alghoul
Solar Energy Research Institute, University Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600, Bang, , Selangor, Malaysia
Web: http://pkukmweb.ukm.my/~SERI/index

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of output air temperature due to

thermal energy discharge process from a phase change material (PCM) unit consists of in-
line single row of cylinders contain a compound of paraffin wax with aluminum powder.
This system consists of a single-glazed solar air collector integrated with a PCM
unit which is divided into cylinders as an absorber-container installed in the collector in a
cross flow of pumped air. An indoor simulation supposed that the PCM initially at liquid
phase (50˚C) heated by solar simulator while the pumped air over the cylinders at room
temperature (28˚C), the mass flow rate, output air temperature, and the freezing time of
PCM, represent important factors, eight steps of mass flow rate were started by 0.05 to
0.19kg/s. A Matlab computer program has been developed to compute the air temperature;
cylinder by cylinder along the duct, freezing time for each cylinder, and the time required
to discharge all the thermal energy. Results show that the air temperature decreases with
increasing of mass flow rate, the discharge time take long interval for lower flow rates.

Keywords: Solar heater, air temperature, PCM, cylindrical container, discharge process,
mass flow rate.
Output Air Temperature Prediction in a Solar Air Heater Integrated with Phase Change Material 335

1. Introduction
Energy storage is not only plays an important role in conservation the energy but also improves the
performance and reliability of wide range of energy systems, and become more important where the
energy source intermittent such as solar.
The applications of solar energy to heat the fluids, including air, can be used to heat buildings,
drying vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs incubation, and other industrial purposes. However, the needs for
a continuous heat supply became an important issue.
In field of solar heating systems, water is still used as a heat storage material in liquid based
systems, while a rock bed is used for air based system, but when you compare the volume requirements
for the storage of heat energy between water and phase change material like Glauber’s salt , you will
see that the water heat storage requires almost five times amount of space as the Glauber’s salt heat
storage, this space savings would result in reduced costs for insulation and construction.
The latent heat method of storage and their materials that have been studied during the last forty
years have been reviewed recently by Farid et. al, (2004) these are usually hydrated salts, paraffins,
non-paraffins ,fatty acides and euctectics of organic and non-organic compounds.
A theoretical model is developed by Morison and Abdel-Khalik (1978), for studying the
transient behavior of phase-change energy storage (PCES) unit and studied the performance of solar
heating systems using both air and liquid as working fluid, this model based on three assumptions:
axial conduction in the flow mode is negligible, Biot number is very low that temperature variations
normal to the flow can be neglected, and heat loss from the unit can be ignored.
Jurinak and Abdel-Khalik (1979), have presented a simple empirical method for sizing phase-
change energy storage units for air-based solar heating systems for many locations during heating
seasons, the previous studies used the solar collector and PCM units separately.
Solomon (1981), predicted the behavior of an array of PCM cylinders as a storage unit under
some assumptions; can make this study by looking at a single row of N cylinders, the heat transfer
process in every cylinder is radially symmetric, and recommended to use this method to design the
systems and their simulation, which is used by the authors in this study to predict the air temperature
and freezing time.
Little designs and studies of solar air heater with a PCM, Fatah (1994), developed a simple
solar collector air heater integrated with thermal energy storage system. A set of copper tubes were
filled with thermal energy storage material and placed as an absorber. Different sensible heat and latent
heat storage materials were studied. The results indicated that the heater filled with PCMs with 51 and
43˚C melting temperatures gives the best performance, otherwise the system daily average efficiency
varies between 27 and 63% depending on the PCM melting temperature, solar intensity and system air
flow resistance.
Enaibe (2002), constructed and studied a natural convection solar air heater with phase change
material energy storage used the paraffin wax as a PCM, under natural environmental conditions
involving ambient temperature variations in the range 19–41°C and daily global irradiation in the range
4.9–19.96 MJ/m². Peak temperature rise of the heated air was about 15 K, while peak cumulative
useful efficiency was about 50%. This system has been designed to use as a solar cabinet crop dryer or
poultry egg incubator.
Enaib (2003), studied the transient thermal analysis of the previous design. the heated air, and
glazing surface were predicted to within 10 °C. The maximum predicted airflow rate was 0.01 kg/s,
corresponding to a maximum inlet velocity of 0.33 m/s.
Hed and Bellander (2006), used a PCM as an air heat exchanger in a building, used heat
exchanger modeled as airflow in a duct where the PCM has a constant temperature, In his work, the
development of a mathematical model of the PCM air heat exchanger is presented. Considerations are
taken to different shapes of the heat capacity and temperature curve.
Commercial paraffin waxes are cheap with moderate thermal storage densities (~200 kJ/kg or
150 MJ/ m3 ) and a wide range of melting temperatures. They undergo negligible subcooling and are
336 M. M. Alkilani, K. Sopian, Sohif Mat and M. A. Alghoul

chemically inert and stable with no phase segregation. However, they have low thermal conductivity
(_0.2 W/m_C), which limits their applications Farid et. al, (2004).
The low thermal conductivity represents the common problem to PCMs, to enhance the heat
exchange between PCM and heat transfer fluid the researchers used high thermal conductivity
additives like aluminum powder and graphite-PCM composite material Marín et. al. (2005), or by
using fins of various configurations (Lacroix 1993, Veraj et al 1997, Shatikian et al, 2008).
Eman-Bellah et. al. (2006), investigated a method of enhancing the thermal conductivity of
paraffin wax by embedding aluminum powder in paraffin wax in a water base collector. The time wise
temperatures of the PCM were recorded during the processes of charging and discharging. In the
discharging process, experiments were conducted for different water flow rates of 9–20.4 kg/h. It was
found that the useful heat gained increased when adding aluminum powder in the wax as compared to
the case of pure paraffin wax.
In this study a prediction of output air temperature and freezing time due to the discharge
process from a PCM unit in a solar air collector, the absorber consists of PCM containers as a set of
cylinders detached from each other to handle the PCM unit easily. A Mat Lap computer program has
been developed to compute the air temperature; cylinder by cylinder along the duct, freezing time for
each cylinder, and the time required to discharge all the thermal energy.

2. Assumptions
For predicting the output air temperature due to discharge process in a PCM unit we assumed the
following hypotheses:
1: Air behaves as an incompressible fluid.
2: the Stefan number is very low.
3: the heat loss assumed very low, and neglected.
4: the heat transfer process in every cylinder is radially symmetric, the heat transfer in PCM is
by conduction.

3. Research Methodology
This system consists of three essential parts which are: a single transparent glass, isolated duct and the
storage unit is which consist of a single row of cylinders contain a PCM, the cylinders placed in the
crossflow of forced air stream, this unit works to satisfy two goals; absorb and storage the solar energy.
The dimensions of the collector is, 0.1808m x 1.06m x 2m has steel cylindrical containers as an
absorber painted black. The total mass of the phase change material is about 72 kg.
The design take into consideration many concerns such as, the integration with PCM storage
unit, the simplicity of construction, dismantlement, and handling the PCM unit, the collector length
which proposed in accordance with Choudhury studies on the design of solar air collectors (1995), and
the number of cylinders which controlled by the collector length. A reflector sheet adjusted under the
cylinders to reflect the escaped rays through the spaces between them.
A solar simulator charge the collector by thermal energy until the cylinders became at liquid
phase, there is no conflict between charging and discharging, and are assumed to take place at different
times so, to investigate the output air temperature due to discharge process consider that no radiation.
Under these conditions, the air mass flow rate increased by 0.02 kg/s each time until to reach the
maximum magnitude 0.19 kg/s.
Output Air Temperature Prediction in a Solar Air Heater Integrated with Phase Change Material 337
Figure 1: Cross section of the solar air collector with PCM cylinders

Glass Solar
simulator
Air
inlet

PCM Air pump

cylinder

Air
outlet

To over come the low thermal conductivity of paraffin wax we can add a powder of material
has a good conductivity property such as copper or aluminum powder, in goal to low the system cost
we preferred to use paraffin wax with aluminum powder, the physical properties of the stimulated
compound calculated as follows:
The thermal conductivity of the compound is defined as
K c = K p.wv p.w + K Al v Al
the specific heat of the compound is defined as
Cc = C p.w m p.w + C Al mAl
the density of the compound is defined as
ρ c = ρ p.wv p.w + ρ Al v Al
where v p.w = V p.w Vc is the volume fraction of paraffin wax; v Al = VAl Vc is the volume fraction of
aluminum powder; m p.w = M p.w M c is the mass fraction of paraffin wax; mAl = M Al M c is the mass
fraction of aluminum powder.

Table 1: Physical properties.

Paraffin wax (Sunoco P116) Aluminum Compound

(Tcr ) o
50 C 50oC
(H) 190 kJ kg 190kJ kg
(ρ s ) 930 kg m 3 2707kg / m3 933kg m3
(ρl ) 830 kg m 3 832kg m3
(K s ) 0.21 x 10 −3 kJ msoK 0.204 kJ ms o K 0.561 x 10 −3 kJ ms o K
(C s , C L ) 2.1kJ kg o K 0.896 kJ kg o K 2.09kJ kg o K
338 M. M. Alkilani, K. Sopian, Sohif Mat and M. A. Alghoul

4. Thermal Modelling for Discharge Process

The heat balance for each typical cylinder:
(Tin − Tout )Ca m& a = 2πRolh(Tin − Tsfc ) (1)
For small Bi Tsfc ≈ Tcr , the steady state fluid temperature after cylinder j ,
T j +1 = γTcr + T j (1 − γ ) (2)
the freezing time for each cylinder, t j = ω[1 + ( j + 1)γ ] (3)
Ro Hρ 1 K s
2
2πRo lh
where; ω = [ + ], γ = (4)
2 K s ΔT 2 hRo m& a C a
The fluid temperature T j (t ) after cylinder j is approximately
T j (t ) = Tj , 0 ≤ t ≤ t1
T j −1 , t1 〈t ≤ t 2
T j −2 , t 2 〈t ≤ t 3 (5)
Ts , t j 〈t
The heat transfer coefficient approximated McAdams (1954),
K
h = a b2 Re n (6)
Do
Where b2 and n are constants equal to 0.3 and 0.6 respectively.

5. Results and Discussion

A Matlab computer program has been developed to compute the air temperature; cylinder by cylinder
along the duct, freezing time for each cylinder, and the time required to discharge all the thermal
energy. In this study supposed that the room temperature was 28˚C, and the total mass of the PCM was
about 72kg.
Figure 2 shows the effect of mass flow rate ( m& ) on air temperature along the 2 meter duct
contains 36 cylinders of PCM. In this simulation, all parameters were kept constant except the system
flow rate, which set between 0.05 to 0.19 kg/s. it is show that the increasing in mass flow rate will
decrease the output air temperature.
Output Air Temperature Prediction in a Solar Air Heater Integrated with Phase Change Material 339
Figure 2: Simulated air temperature curves along the collector with different mass flow rates

Figure 3 shows the effect of mass flow rate on discharge time, which takes long range
approximately (8 hours) for lower mass flow rate 0.05kg/s, and takes short time range to discharge,
approximately (3.50 hr) for the higher mass flow rate 0.19kg/s.

Figure 3: Air temperatures against discharge time with different mass flow rates.
340 M. M. Alkilani, K. Sopian, Sohif Mat and M. A. Alghoul

6. Conclusion
Output air temperatures due to a discharge process in a solar air heater integrated with a phase change
material have been predicted for eight different values of mass flow rate, and reached the maximum
temperature (42˚C), with mass flow rate (0.05kg/s). The PCM consists of paraffin wax with mass
fraction 0.5% aluminum powder to enhance the heat transfer, the freezing time for the PCM unit has
been predicted for each mass flow rate, The freezing time of the PCM cylinders related inversely to the
mass flow rate, and take longer time approximately (8 hours) with flow rate of 0.05 kg/s.

Notation

o
T Temperature C
l Cylinder length m
Do Cylinder diameter m
Ro Cylinder radius m
C Specific heat kJ kg o C
m& mass flow rate kg s
h Heat transfer coefficient kJ m 2 s oC
H Latent heat kJ kg
K Thermal conductivity kJ m.s o C
Gmax Superficial mass velocity kg s.m 2
Amin Minimum free flow area m2

Subscripts
a Air
cr Critical
s Solid PCM
l Liquid PCM
sfc Surface

Dimensionless Parameters

Bi = hRo Biot number

K
Output Air Temperature Prediction in a Solar Air Heater Integrated with Phase Change Material 341

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