Abstract
Phase change materials have been applied as a viable solution for augmenting the thermal behavior of various solar thermal systems, including heat pipe evacuated tube solar collectors. Due to complex heat transfer processes that need to be resolved, performing numerical simulations on these devices is computationally intensive. In this study, a novel hybrid method is introduced where a snapshot based proper orthogonal decomposition method is utilized to develop a reduced order model of the collector/phase change material assembly. The model allows for prediction of the collector’s thermal behavior during day/night time operation, in addition to highlighting the benefits of utilizing phase change materials compared to regular collector, working under similar operating conditions. An enthalpy-based lattice Boltzmann method is utilized for obtaining the snapshot data needed for constructing the reduced order model. The novelties of this hybrid method include reduced computation time, by several orders of magnitude, compared to direct numerical simulation methods and a significant reduction in dependency on meteorological and weather data. Finally, two case studies are considered to examine the accuracy of the model and it’s subsequent industrial applications are discussed.
