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Investigation of functionally graded metal foam thermal management system for solar cell
摘要： Concentrated photovoltaic cell (CPV) is a solar energy harvesting device that converts solar energy into electrical energy. However, the performance and efficiency of the CPV are heavily dependent on the temperature. Besides, nonuniformity of temperature distribution on the CPV will lead to thermal aging and affects the cycle life. Hence, an effective cooling system is required to remove excess heat generated to ensure that the CPV operates at optimum operating temperature with minimum variation of temperature. Metal foam is a new class of material that possesses huge potential for thermal management. In this study, a functionally graded metal foam is proposed for the CPV thermal management system. Computational thermal fluid dynamic analysis is conducted to investigate the effect of porosity and pore density on the flow field and thermal performance of the aluminum foam heat sink. The investigation results revealed that 10 PPI functionally graded aluminum foam heat sink with two stages of porosity gradient 0.794 and 0.682 produced the lowest pressure drop and highest thermal performance. Temperature difference of 3.9°C was achieved for a solar cell with total heat generation of 900 W under water mass flow rate of 20 gs?1.
关键词： metal foam,thermal management system,concentrator photovoltaic,functionally graded metal foam,CFD model
更新于2025-09-19 17:13:59
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Numerical study of the geometrically graded metal foam for concentrated photovoltaic solar cell cooling
摘要： Concentrated photovoltaic cell (CPV) had gained much attention recently due to high efficiency at a competitive cost. However, efficiency of CPV is inversely proportional to the temperature. Hence, it is important to reduce the maximum temperature and variation of temperature across the CPV. Metal foam with its high specific surface area, thermal conductivity and tortuous flow path to promote mixing is an ideal candidate for thermal management for CPV. However, the thermal performance of the metal foam may drop from upstream to downstream and lead to poor cooling performance near the outlet. In this study, functionally graded metal foam is attached on the CPV to extract the heat generated. Functionally graded aluminum foam with gradual variation porosity are modelled to investigate the thermal performance and flow field using computational thermal fluid dynamics analysis. Heat transfer correlation, permeability and resistance loss coefficient are extracted from the literature and used in the simulation. The results showed that functionally graded metal foam with gradual reducing porosity offered a better temperature uniformity for the CPV. Therefore, this approach will further extend the cycle life as well as improve the overall efficiency of the CPV.
关键词： solar cell,cooling,metal foam,CFD,porous media
更新于2025-09-12 10:27:22