Investigation of water cooled aluminium foam heat sink for concentrated photovoltaic solar cell

Abstract

Concentrated photovoltaic cell (CPV) is a popular renewable source nowadays. It has high efficient yet cost effective energy harvesting system available in the market. The performance of the CPV depends strongly on the temperature of the solar cell. The efficiency reduces as the surface temperature of the CPV increases. It is crucial to reduce the temperature of the CPV and maintains a small temperature variation along the surface of the CPV. Metal foam is an ideal solution for a CPV thermal management system. It helps to enhance the mixing of coolant due to its porous characteristics and lead to higher heat transfer rate and reduce the overall average temperature of a CPV. The main objective of this study is to enhance the heat removal rate along of the CPV. Aluminium foam is used as a heat sink to removal the heat generated. The effects of porosities and pores density (PPI) of the aluminium foam are measured against the thermal performance. Computational thermal fluid dynamics is conducted to study the thermal performance of aluminium foam heat sink. The parameters required for the simulations are extracted from literature. The results suggested that aluminum foam is able to enhance the heat removal and maintains better temperature uniformity of the CPV. 10PPI aluminum foam with porosity 0.682 provides the most optimum results with average temperature of 55.1 ˚C and temperature different of 7.4 °C at flow rate of 40 g/s. This approach is suitable to promote the efficiency of the CPV and prolong the cycle life.

Optimization of Photovoltaic Thermal Collectors Using Fins: A Review of Strategies for Enhanced Solar Energy Harvesting

“…Due to its capacity to disperse heat in electronic chambers, this device has been utilized extensively by numerous authors to manage the thermal effect in solar panels. Cheong Tan et al [33] used aluminum foam in concentrated solar cells as a heat sink (CPV). Before inserting aluminum foam into a concentrated solar cell, the effects of porosity and pore density were initially studied to check for thermal performance.…”

Boosting thermal regulation of phase change materials in photovoltaic-thermal systems through solid and porous fins

“…Numerous studies confirm their efficacy. (Cheong Tan et al, 2019) investigated the use of porous aluminium as a heat sink in concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) modules to improve heat dissipation. Their results showed that the porous aluminium significantly improved the heat dissipation and temperature of the CPV module.…”

High porosity and light weight graphene foam heat sink and phase change material container for thermal management

“…High porosity metallic foams offer an excellent compromise between low density and lightweight, high surface area to volume [6], high elasticity and mechanical strength [7] and high heat dissipation with limited power and cost. The effective thermal conductivities of metallic opencell foams were found to vary depending on the nature of the material and the fluids circulating within them [8,9], and their level of porosity [10]. Aluminium foam effective thermal conductivity was measured to reach 6 W m −1 K −1 at 90.98% porosity [11][12][13] and with heat fluxes as high as 68.8 • 10 4 W m −2 when used as a heat sink [14].…”