Numerical investigation of the effect of rectangular and semicircular cavities filled with phase change materials installed on the solar wall

Jawed Mustafa; Saeed Alqaed; Fahad Awjah Almehmadi; Shahid Husain; Basharat Jamil; Mohsen Sharifpur

doi:10.1007/s11356-023-28244-y

Numerical investigation of the effect of rectangular and semicircular cavities filled with phase change materials installed on the solar wall

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Jul 12. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-28244-y. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jawed Mustafa¹, Saeed Alqaed¹, Fahad Awjah Almehmadi², Shahid Husain³, Basharat Jamil⁴, Mohsen Sharifpur^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Najran University, P.O. Box (1988), Najran, 61441, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Applied Mechanical Engineering, College of Applied Engineering, Muzahimiyah Branch, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh, 11421, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India.
⁴ High Temperature Processes Unit, IMDEA Energy Institute, Av. Ramón de La Sagra, 3, Móstoles, 28935, Madrid, Spain.
⁵ Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. mohsen.sharifpur@up.ac.za.
⁶ Department of Medical Research, China Medical University Hospital, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan. mohsen.sharifpur@up.ac.za.

PMID: 37438511
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-28244-y

Abstract

The use of alternative energy sources, particularly solar energy, in buildings is rising and spreading around the globe. In this paper, a solar wall is analyzed using a numerical method. On the wall, a number of obstacles are placed in two shapes, rectangular (REC) and semicircular (SEC). The cavities are filled with organic phase-change materials. This study was performed in 7 h in the absence of solar radiation on the wall for different dimensions of obstacles in 5 different modes. Various temperatures have been investigated, including exhaust air temperature (TAR), Trombe wall temperature (TWL), and mean volume % of molten PCM in cavities. COMSOL software is used to carry out this numerical study. The results of this study showed that the use of SECs compared to RECs causes the TWL to be higher. In the most extreme case, at a 16 cm aspect ratio, the use of SECs gives a 2.1 °C increase in TWL relative to the REC one. The outlet TAR is also increased by the usage of SECs. The use of larger dimensions of the cavities has increased the TAR leaving the wall so that the TAR after 7 h of the absence of solar radiation, in the most significant case of SECs, was more than 295.5 K. The use of SECs also increases the PCM freezing time. In the largest case of cavities, using SECs increases the freezing time by 15 min compared to RECs.

Keywords: Building; Numerical method; Phase change materials; Solar energy.