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2. PHD Thesis / Tesis PHD
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Title:	Performance of a novel passive cooling system for photovoltaic module using fins and planar reflector
Authors:	Abdelnaser Muftah A. Elbreki (P73220)
Supervisor:	Kamaruzzaman Sopian, Prof. Dato' Dr.
Keywords:	Cooling system Photovoltaic power systems
Issue Date:	27-Apr-2018
Description:	The performance of photovoltaic (PV) module depends on the incident solar irradiation, ambient and module temperatures. Themodule efficiency decreases as the operating temperature increases. Hence, cooling the PV module with using passive heat sink is a viable in terms of simplicity and cost, and maintenance.The aim of this study was to design, fabricate, and evaluate the performance of the PV module using fins as the passive heat sink and planar reflectors. The optimum top and bottom angles of the planar reflector and the PV tilt angle have been determined under the Malaysia climate conditions. The optimum PV module tilt angle was 14o and 60o for the upper and the lower reflector angles. Five different configurations of fin design (lapping, truncated, longitude, radial, and interrupted) have been developed and welded underneath the aluminum plate. A parametric analysis under steady-state conditions has been carried out. A 3-D Navier-Stokes equation coupled with energy balance equation were solved using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software program to perform numerical computations. Engineering Equation Solver (EES) was used for numerically analysis of the bare PV module without cooling fins. A design of experiment (DOE) / response surface method (RSM) was used to identify the superior design and optimum design parameters in terms of fin height, fin pitch, fin thickness, number of fins and tilt angle. The optimum design and optimum parameters were determined based on the PV module temperature, power and efficiency. The experimental setup was constructed using the optimum specifications for each design obtained from DOE and validated using the theoretical results. The fin configurations were made of aluminum sheet of thickness 2mm. The PV module has been attached on the top surface of the aluminum plate using double-sided aluminum foil tape with high thermal conductivity. Based on the theoretical results, the lapping fins design has the highest performance. The mean PV module temperature was 39.73oCfor the lapping design while the mean PV module temperature of the module without fins was 64.3oC. Therefore, the lapping design was able to lower the module temperature by an amount of 24.6oC at solar radiation of 1000 W/m2 and ambient temperature of 33oC. In case of the longitude fins, the mean PV module temperature reduced to 43.81oC with temperature difference of 20.49oC at solar radiation 1000W/m2 and average wind speed equal to 1m/s. The experimental results indicated that the electrical efficiency was improved from 9.8% for bare PV module to 11.15%, 10.68% for lapping and longitude, respectively. Moreover, the power was increased from 18.5W without fin cooling to 37.1W, 30.65W for lapping and longitude fins respectively. From the experimental and the theoretical results the lapping fin design has a higher PV performance among the other designs. The optimum number of fins (10-30) and height of fins (100-300mm) werefound to be 15, 200mm,18 and 200mm for the longitude and the lapping designs, respectively. Furthermore, the thickness of aluminum plate above 2 mm showed a negligible effect on the PV power and efficiency. Finally,the techno-economic analysis showed that cooling PV module with using passive technique was the preferred option.,Ph.D.
Pages:	220
Call Number:	TK1087.E433 2018 3 tesis
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Solar Energy Research Institute / Institut Penyelidikan Tenaga Suria (SERI)

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