Author : Sihem Abidi, Habib Sammouda and Rachid Bennacer

The current investigation deals with the numerical study of heat transfer in a heat exchanger, with wings, associated to a sensor using solar photovoltaic cells. The heat exchanger is composed of a support cavity. The upper wall of the cavity is in contact with PV cells, while the bottom wall is a good thermal conducting metal. Besides, the bottom wall is in contact with the room (local cavity) to be heated. This problem is governed by the conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy when the solid and fluid phases are not in thermal equilibrium. The parameters characteristic of this system such as the number of wings, Nfi, their length, Lfi and the number of Rayleigh, Ra, were optimized by analyzing their effects on the heat transfer, in order to cool the PV cells and heating the local cavity. Results proved that in case the heat flux increases the fluid flow will be convective progressively; the dimension of fins will be affecting the behaviours of flow. The longer fin has more remarkable effects on the flow fields. Moreover, it is seen that temperature in the local cavity is enhanced with increasing the number of fins. In contrast, in the support cavity, the temperature is observed to be lowered by augmenting the number of fins.

Keywords: Natural Convection, Fin-Heat Exchanger, Solar Energy, PV Cells, Heat Transfer

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.5, No.4 (Aug-2015)