Experimental Investigation on the Heat Transfer Characteristics of Multi-Point Heating Microchannels for Simulating Solar Cell Cooling

Qi Yang, Yanpei Huang, Zitian Niu, Yuandong Guo, Qi Wu and Jianyin Miao
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Qi Yang: Beijing Key Laboratory of Space Thermal Control Technology, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing 100094, China
Yanpei Huang: Beijing Key Laboratory of Space Thermal Control Technology, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing 100094, China
Zitian Niu: Beijing Key Laboratory of Space Thermal Control Technology, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing 100094, China
Yuandong Guo: Laboratory of Fundamental Science on Ergonomics and Environmental Control, School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Qi Wu: Beijing Key Laboratory of Space Thermal Control Technology, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing 100094, China
Jianyin Miao: Beijing Key Laboratory of Space Thermal Control Technology, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing 100094, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-14

Abstract: Concentrating photovoltaic power generation technology is a highly efficient way of utilizing solar energy resources with the efficiency limited by cell cooling conditions. For the heat dissipation problem from multi-point solar cell cooling, a microchannel heat sink is used to resolve the issue. Ammonia is chosen as the working fluid and two diamond microchannel heat sinks in series for the 16 simulated solar cells cooling with typical size. The heat sink consists of 31 triangular microchannels, each with a hydraulic diameter of 237 μm and a flow path length of 40 mm. It is experimentally verified that the diamond microchannel heat sink has excellent multi-point heat source heat dissipation capability. The surface temperature of the heat source can be controlled below 65.9 °C under the heat flux of 351.5 W/cm 2 , and the maximum temperature difference between the multi-point heat sources is only 1.4 °C. The effects of heat flux, mass flux and inlet state on the flow boiling heat transfer capacity within the series heat sinks were investigated and the ranges of the operating conditions are as follows: heat flux 90.8–351.5 W/cm 2 , mass flux 108–611 kg/(m 2 s), saturation temperature 15–23 °C and inlet temperature 15–21 °C. The results show that within the range of experimental conditions, the flow boiling heat transfer capacity of the series heat sink increases with the increase of heat flux and is less influenced by the mass flux, showing the typical two-phase heat transfer characteristics dominated by the nucleation boiling mechanism. Between the upstream and downstream heat sinks, the thermal resistance of the upstream heat sink is larger and the temperature uniformity of the downstream heat sink is poor because of the difference of the inlet state.

Keywords: solar cell cooling; multiple heat sources; microchannel; flow boiling; series heat sink (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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