Thermal management of electronic devices and concentrator photovoltaic systems using phase change material heat sinks: Experimental investigations

Mohamed Emam, Shinichi Ookawara and Mahmoud Ahmed

Renewable Energy, 2019, vol. 141, issue C, 322-339

Abstract: The present experimental study focuses on the passive thermal regulation of electronic devices and concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems using phase change material (PCM). Therefore, a fabricated system was attached to a silicon rubber heater to imitate the heat dissipation from electronic devices or CPV cells. Several sets of experiments were performed to investigate the melting of three different PCMs (RT25HC, RT35HC, and RT44HC) at three distinct heat flux values of 2000, 2950, 3750 W/m2. Results revealed that using RT25HC, RT35HC, and RT44HC PCMs decreased the average front wall temperature associated with the electronic component or CPV cells by about 69.8, 80.44, and 74.44 °C when compared to that of the system without PCM. The solidification of RT44HC PCM was studied at different ambient temperatures of 20, 25, and 30 °C. It was noticed that, the time to reach the complete solid phase increases from 407 min to 501, and 585 min when the ambient temperature rises from 20 to 25, and 30 °C, respectively. Finally, the effect of cavity formation inside solid PCMs due to solidification shrinkage on their cooling performance was investigated. Results indicated that air cavities formation inside solid PCMs has insignificant effect on their cooling performance.

Keywords: Phase change materials; Electronic cooling; CPV cooling; Air cavities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148119304720
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:141:y:2019:i:c:p:322-339

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.03.151

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().