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2. PHD Thesis / Tesis PHD
3. Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment / Fakulti Kejuruteraan dan Alam Bina

Title:	Development and fabrication of a solar air heater integrated with enchanced phase change material (PCM) unit
Authors:	Mahmud Ma. Alkilani (P42333)
Supervisor:	Kamaruzzaman Sopian, Prof. Dato Dr.
Keywords:	Solar Heater Solar heating
Issue Date:	20-Aug-2013
Description:	Solar air heater integrated with phase change material (PCM) is a collector that combines solar thermal collector with thermal storage unit in one product. Organic latent heat materials are suitable to use as storage medium, however, the low thermal conductivity of these materials slow the thermal response during charging and discharging processes. The main objective of this thesis was to fabricate and evaluate solar air heater integrated with suitable PCM unit. The single pass solar air heater integrated with PCM has been fabricated and tested indoor. The system consists of top glazed isolated duct, air pump and array of PCM capsules plays to absorb the radiation and storing the thermal energy to discharge to demand when no radiation. The collector has effective dimensions of 1.22 m width and 2.20 m length. The height of the channel is 0.13m. The PCM unit consists of 54 cylindrical capsules. The dimensions of each capsule are 1.2 m length and 0.0377 m outer diameter. The tested mass fractions in the PCM-aluminum compound material were 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 of aluminum. Aluminum powder particulate size was 70μm. A mathematical model of the storage unit was developed for the transfer fluid temperature with the heat storage behavior of the PCM array and programmed using MATLAB 7.0 to predict the outlet air temperature and discharge time. The solar simulator charge the collector by radiative energy until PCM inside the cylinders becomes at a liquid phase then switched off the simulator to investigate the outlet air temperature and storage performance due to discharge process. Under the discharge condition, predicted and experimental studied was achieved. The radiation intensity was measured by LI-200 pyranometer. The temperatures of many positions in the system have been measured using T-type thermocouples. The air pumped through the system using electrical blower can be controlled to supply air by varies velocities. The air mass flow rate varies from 0.03 kg/s up to 0.09 kg/s, while the temperature varied from 30 to 35˚C. The signals sensed from the thermocouples and other instruments are fed to the ADAM module then saved as data in a PC. The results obtained from experiments agreed the predicted results. The charging time was reduced by approximately 70% and the cooling rate increased when used the paraffin wax-aluminum composite. The thermal storage efficiency reached the maximum values 71%, and 76.8% at mass flow rates 0.05 kg/s and 0.07 kg/s for pure paraffin wax and the compound respectively. The overall thermal storage performance for the system enhanced from 21.7% to 78.9%. An economic optimization model was developed for the cost-benefit study that will give the designer the choice to select the suitable PCM unit and the optimum design needed. It is concluded that the thermal response time was reduced while the storage efficiency was increased after adding aluminum powder in the wax. The discharge time decreased when mass flow rate increased. Outlet air temperature and thermal storage performance of the system has been studied. The storage efficiency was increased after adding aluminum powder. The encapsulation process was also effective to overcome the expansion and leaking problems and recommended to use these capsules by the researchers and students in laboratories for the experimental investigations.,Ph.D
Pages:	211
Call Number:	TH7413 .A444 2013 3
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment / Fakulti Kejuruteraan dan Alam Bina

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