The PCM-porous system used to cool the inclined PV panel

The PCM composited with metal foam (PCM-porous system) as heat sink to cool photovoltaic (PV) panel is a potential application. However, there has little attention on the differences in cooling effect of PCMporous systems when PV panels install with different inclination angles. To fill this research gap, the charging processes of PCM-porous systems with different inclined angles (phi = 0 degrees, 30 degrees, 60 degrees, 90 degrees) have been investigated numerically and experimentally in the current work. Meanwhile, the influences of different Rayleigh numbers (Ra = 1.4568 x 10(6), 1.8210 x 10(8), 1.1654 x 10(10)) have been considered. Results show that the inclined angle has little impact on the PCM-porous system with small porosity (epsilon = 85%, 90%), which is much different from the PCM-porous system with larger porosity (epsilon = 95%). In the discussion, an interesting phenomenon has been found that the weak natural convection of liquid PCM in porous media induced by the inclined cavity plays a negative role in melting process, which is obvious in PCM-porous system with small porosity (epsilon = 85%, 90%). But this negative effect is not necessarily a bad thing due to that it can extend the duration time to cool the PV panel. The maximum duration time of PCM-porous system with epsilon = 85% or 90% is 2 times of system with epsilon = 95% (phi not equal 0 degrees). (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The study found that the weak natural convection of liquid PCM induced by the inclined cavity in PCM-porous system with small porosity has a negative impact on the melting process, but this negative effect can actually extend the duration time to cool the PV panel.