Simulation Study of Computational Fluid Dynamics on Photovoltaic Thermal Water Collector with Different Designs of Absorber Tube

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate and comparing the thermal efficiency, electrical efficiency and total efficiency of photovoltaic thermal collector (PVT) with different design of absorber tube. ANSYS Fluent software was used to carry out computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. In this study, water was selected as the heat transfer fluid. The geometric model was drawn in CATIA V5R20 and imported into ANSYS software to generate mesh model. In setup, the flow, radiation model and material properties were constructed. In radiation mode, surface to surface (S2S) model was used. Comparison between author simulation results and previous experiment results shows good agreement. The root mean square error was only 1.29°C. Meanwhile, the root mean square error between previous research simulation and previous experimental results was 2.08°C. The influences of mass flow rate on performance of PVT was determined. In range between 0.0005kg/s and 0.005kg/s, serpentine, u-flow and spiral design of PVT achieved their highest thermal efficiency at 0.005kg/s, which are 22.62%, 21.02% and 22.96% respectively. In term of electrical efficiency, u-flow design managed to achieve 11.78%, which is highest electrical efficiency among the 3 designs at 0.005kg/s. Both of serpentine and spiral design had same electrical efficiency at 0.005kg/s which is 11.67%. In range between 0.0005kg/s and 0.005kg/s, all three design of PVT achieved their highest total efficiency at 0.005kg/s. At 0.005kg/s, spiral showed highest total efficiency, 34.63%, followed by serpentine design, 34.29%, then u-flow design, 32.8%.