IMPROVEMENT OF THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE BY INTEGRATING PCM INTO SOLAR SYSTEM

The solar heater is a system that generates hot water by converting solar energy to thermal energy. In these last few years, various ways have been developed to gather this natural energy. However, they can not be able to store the energy when the sun disappears. In this study, thermal system based on phase change materials that improves the hot water production and stores thermal energy is proposed. In order to describe phase change materials and considers the effects of inclination angle on the production and storing thermal energy a numerical study has been carried out using the ANSYS-Fluent software. In addition, details concerning the choice of calculation range, mesh size, boundary conditions and turbulence model have been provided. The numerical results have been compared with previous data that was very promising.