A simulation of solar photovoltaic thermal system with spiral design absorber using MWCNT water working fluid

• Main Author: Ponnaiyan, Jayaprakash
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/27057/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=122808

The photovoltaic (PV) module's temperature distribution is not even in most cases, which causes a region of hotspots to appear in some areas. Due to these hotspots, less effective cell performance causes declination in overall efficiency of PV systems. Due to this, temperature uniformity is distributed by adopting the appropriate absorber at the back of the PV panel and to increase the efficiency of the system by employing effective working fluid. In this study, considering a spiral design absorber attached with flow tube to provide temperature uniformity across the photovoltaic module. In addition to that, utilizing a multi-wall carbon nano-tube (MWCNT) with water as a base fluid provided improved performance for the system. The absorber model spiral absorber design is developed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation software, ANSYS Fluent 2022 R2. After applying necessary boundary conditions and solver settings the water based working fluids with the volume concentration of MWCNT (p=0.6%), and (= 1 %) are tested to obtain the temperature uniformity along the PV top surface, and outlet temperature. The main findings of the study indicates that decrease in PV top surface temperature while varying the nanofluids, (0.6%) as 30.43°C, and (= 1 %) as 30.41°C. This shows (= 1 %) temperature which is below than (p=0.6%) which directly leads to reduction of the solar cell temperature, and hence increment in performance of the system. The temperature contour of PV top surface by utilizing these working fluids are compared and suggested that MWCNT (9 1 %) as a better working fluid to decrease the PV top surface temperature of the solar photovoltaic thermal system.