Publication Type : Journal Article
Source : Applied Thermal Engineering, 2019
Url : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359431118338511
Campus : Amaravati
School : School of Engineering
Department : English
Verified : No
Year : 2019
Abstract : The present experimental work attempts to sustain the thermal response of the double-pass solar air heater system (DPSAHS) by the thermal lag of phase change material (PCM). At the same time, this analysis investigates the role of metallic macro-encapsulation on the heat storage and recovery from PCM integrated inside the DPASHS. The objectives are to investigate the influence of the geometry of encapsulation used for storage and to examine whether the discrete units allow faster charging and discharging of organic paraffin wax (PCM). In this work, an average encapsulate efficiency of 47.2% and 67% was obtained respectively for rectangular and cylindrical macro-encapsulates equipped DPSAHS. A performance comparison of DPSAHS with and without storage was presented. An overall cost analysis shows that with a small margin in constructional cost, operational time of DPSAHS was improved. The cost of heating 1 kg of hot air was 0.0074$. The overall work aims to support marginal and subsistent farmers to deal with improper drying during winter on which the potential sunshine hours are limited to 7 hours/day at Calicut (11o32'N, 75o93'E) located in peninsular India.
Cite this Research Publication : Raj, A.K., Srinivas, M., Jayaraj, S., 2019. A cost-effective method to improve the performance of solar air heaters using discrete macro-encapsulated PCM capsules for drying applications. Applied Thermal Engineering, 146, pp.910-920. (Q1, IF – 4.026)