Performance Analysis of an Evacuated Tube Collector with Wavy Tape and
Phase Change Material for Hot Water Production
Abstract
In recent years, substantial efforts have been focused on innovating the
design modification of water heating systems to overcome the issue of
low efficiency. This study evaluates the performance of four different
cases of evacuated tube solar water heater (ETSC). conventional ETSC,
ETSC with wavy tape, ETSC with PCM, and lastly ETSC with PCM + wavy
tape. The novelty of this research lies in exploring the integration of
binary eutectic PCM and combined effects of PCM and wavy tape in the
operation of ETSC. The findings of the present study reveals that the
enhancement in outlet temperature in ETSC with wavy tape, with PCM and,
with PCM and wavy tape is 7, 9.7 and 12 % respectively as compared to
conventional ETSC. The highest hourly efficiency had noticed 71.75% for
the ETSC with (PCM + WT), followed by 67.63%, 65.5%, and 60.61% for
the ETSC with WT, PCM, and conventional, respectively while the daily
average efficiency of the discussed cases is 35.17, 39.90, 40.32 and
45.92% respectively. Similarly, the exergy efficiency follows the same
trend as energy efficiency and reveals that the ETSC with (WT + PCM),
exhibits an average exergy efficiency of 6.11%, which is higher than
conventional ETSC (3.48%), ETSC with plain WT (4.43%), and ETSC with
PCM (5.09%). The environmental analysis based on energetic and
exergetic approach is also carried out and the results reveals that ETSC
with PCM + WT mitigates more CO 2/ton compared to the
other cases.