A study on the thermal performance of solar oven based on phase-change heat storage

Abstract

Solar oven based on sunlight condensation is a promising energy conservation and sustainable solar thermal utility way. However, the temperature of solar oven is greatly affected by the sunshine conditions. In this research, adding phase-change heat storage layer in the solar vacuum tubular collector has been proposed, and the thermal performance has been numerically studied. The influence of the food initial temperature on the temperature distribution of the heat storage layer has been investigated. The results show that adding phase-change heat storage layer (φ40 mm/80 mm × 770 mm) makes the oven inner wall temperature 30°C–80°C higher than that without phase-change heat storage layer when the oven cavity temperature is at a constant of 100°C; and the oven inner wall temperature fluctuation caused by sunshine is obviously reduced from 100°C to 18°C–35°C. It indicates that the food initial temperature has little effect on the temperature field of the heat storage layer with the food initial temperature being 10°C–50°C. The analysis of the heat storage performance shows that the heat storage layer has a certain heat storage capacity in all seasons, and the daily heat storage is up to 2718 kJ.