Free cooling based phase change material for domestic buildings in hot arid climate

Zeinelabdein, Rami; Omer, Siddig; Mohamed, Elamin; Amaireh, Ikrima; Gan, Guohui

Abstract

Free cooling based phase change materials (FCPCM) are promising sustainable technologies which could be used to store the cold energy available during summer nights in a sufficient latent heat storage for later utilisation during the daytime. This current work aims to evaluate the feasibility of FCPCM technology in hot arid regions where the cooling demand is dominant during most of the year round. Energy-Plus simulation engine was used to predict the cooling load of a selected case study in order to size the capacity of the storage medium. The flat-plate PCM panel storage system has been developed and assessed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling utilising ANSYS FLUENT. The influence of operating conditions on the system performance was discussed through studying the solidification and melting process characterisation of the PCM. The results indicate that the proposed system is capable of reducing the cooling load substantially and the temperature of air supplied by the system is well maintained within the summer comfort zone between 298.65 and 303.15 K under the case study climate for up to 14.5 hours during the discharging period.

Citation

Zeinelabdein, R., Omer, S., Mohamed, E., Amaireh, I., & Gan, G. Free cooling based phase change material for domestic buildings in hot arid climate. Presented at 16th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET 2017)

• Conference Name: 16th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET 2017)
• End Date: Jul 20, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Jun 13, 2017
• Publication Date: Jul 17, 2017
• Deposit Date: Nov 29, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 29, 2017
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Free cooling; Phase change material (PCM); Building cooling; hot arid climate, CFD analysis
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/873022
• Related Public URLs: https://www2017.org
• Contract Date: Nov 29, 2017