Experimental analysis of a PCM-Air heat exchanger for building cooling in hot-arid climates

Zeinelabdein, Rami; Omer, Siddig; Gan, Guohui

Abstract

The use of phase change materials as energy storage of cooling during the night-time to be retrieved during the hot daytime is one of the sustainable strategies for cooling buildings. In the present work, a modular PCM-air heat exchanger appropriate for buildings application in hot-arid regions has been investigated experimentally utilising commercial paraffin-based RT28HC PCM modules. The thermal performance of the proposed system has been investigated under various operating conditions for different PCM modules arrangement. The results confirmed that a compact design made of narrow PCM air flow channels has better thermal performance resulting in 10-14% reduction in the charging time, whilst this has a negligible impact on the comfort time during the discharging period. The results have shown that the proposed system design is capable of operating satisfactorily under the hot-arid climate conditions, and substantial energy savings are achievable.

Citation

Zeinelabdein, R., Omer, S., & Gan, G. (2018). Experimental analysis of a PCM-Air heat exchanger for building cooling in hot-arid climates

• Conference Name: 17th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET 2018)
• Start Date: Aug 21, 2018
• End Date: Aug 23, 2018
• Acceptance Date: Jun 3, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Aug 23, 2018
• Publication Date: Aug 23, 2018
• Deposit Date: Mar 5, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 5, 2019
• Journal: 17 th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies – SET
• Keywords: Thermal energy storage; Phase change material; Free cooling
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1607354
• Related Public URLs: http://set2018.org/