Open Access

ARTICLE

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A SOLAR WATER HEATER INTEGRATED WITH BUILT-IN THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE VIA POROUS MEDIA

Hasan S. Majdi^a,*, Azher M. Abed^b, Laith J. Habeeb^c

a Department of Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Industries, Al-Mustaqbal University College Babylon, 51001, Iraq
b Air conditioning and Refrigeration Techniques Engineering Department, Al-Mustaqbal University College, Babylon, 51001, Iraq
c Training and Workshop Center, University of Technology – Iraq, Baghdad, 10001, Iraq
* Corresponding Author. Email: hasanshker1@gmail.com, Hasanshker@mustaqbal-college.edu.iq

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2021, 17, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.17.6

Abstract

The present work presents and analyzes the results acquired from outdoor experimental measurements of a solar latent heat storage unit integrated with built-in thermal energy storage at the presence and absence of porous media. The tank consists of a porous media part, a packed of glass beds, and the fluid flowing through the void space surrounding the porous glass beds. The porous tanks were filled by 1.68 mm glass beds to form bed heights (h) of 10 and 20 cm. Results show that the maximum thermal storage of 110 min is achieved in hot flow rate qh=4 LPM, cold flow rate qc=5 LPM and h=20 cm, while the same flow rates of the case of absence porous media gives 90 min of thermal storage time. The same enhancement was achieved in case of qh=2 LPM, qc=2 LPM and h = 20 cm during heating process due to heat transfer resistance by mean of porous media.

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Keywords

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