Thermal Performance of Heat Pipe with PCM Jacket

Abstract

This paper reports an experimental investigation on the design of a latent thermal energy storage system with heat pipe. The system contains a heat pipe, parabolic trough collector, a glass container filled with phase-changing material, etc., concentrate solar energy over the evaporator section of the heat pipe with the help of parabolic trough collector (PTC) and the flow of energy to the condenser section which surrounds by phase-changing material. The water flows at particular mass flow rate over the condenser section of the heat pipe; the stored energy can be utilized at the end of the evaporator section. Experiments were performed on sunny days of February and March under standard test conditions. Results show that during high solar radiation, thermal energy storage system stores thermal energy effectively. The instantaneous efficiency of the heat pipe at different times of the day is found, and the maximum efficiency of 50.35% is observed.