Comparison of phase change material for thermal analysis of a passive hydronic solar system

Abstract

Abstract This work aims to investigate experimentally the conservation of the collected thermal solar energy, and enhancement of the performance of such solar system by combined sensible and latent heat thermal energy store during the whole interval of the day including early morning, late afternoons and nights. A new hydronic passive solar system containing phase-change materials (PCM) was designed, installed and tested at JUST campus. Thermal analysis and performance of the system was accomplished and resulted in a new mathematical model with ± 2% uncertainty in the case of using sodium sulfate decahydrate as PCM and ± 0.2% of using 1-dodecanol as PCM; the uncertainty is ± 5% for the case not using PCM. This system showed less variation in temperature and less thermal losses.