Thermal Modeling of PCM-Based

Solar Integrated Collector

K. S. Reddy
Heat Transfer and Thermal Power Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai-600036, India
e-mail: ksreddy@iitm.ac.in
Storage Water Heating System
The thermal modeling and analysis of a transparent insulation materials (TIM) covered
solar integrated collector storage (ICS) water heating system with phase-change material
(PCM) is carried out in this paper. The system consists of a double rectangular enclosure
of cross section 1 m ⫻ 1 m where the top enclosure is filled with paraffin wax and that of
the bottom is with water. The transient response of the PCM-water solar ICS system is
studied with and without fins on the diurnal basis. The performance of the system is
investigated with 4, 9, and 19 fins inside the wax having a pitch of 20 cm, 10 cm, and
5 cm, respectively. The latent heat storage with nine fins is found to be optimum for
maximum water temperature and minimum heat losses to the surroundings. The tempera-
ture of water in the ICS exceeds 50° C with a temperature drop of only 1.5– 2 ° C during
nighttime. The nine-fin solar ICS configuration attains ⬃9 ° C higher than other
configurations. 关DOI: 10.1115/1.2770753兴

Keywords: integrated-collector-storage system, phase change materials, transparent in-

sulation materials, numerical modeling, fins

Introduction for providing hot water instantaneously. The salt-hydrate PCM

A solar integrated collector storage 共ICS兲 water heating system
is simply a combination of collection and storage in a single unit.
Its shape is not very complex, making it easier and cheaper for
manufacturing. The elimination of a separate vertical storage tank
and the collector from the conventional solar heater makes it cost
effective. However, it has a relatively low efficiency 关1,2兴. Though
the basic idea on solar energy storage has not changed, many
interesting solar collectors have been proposed and tested. Some
examples of these are water-filled oil barrels as solar collectors
关3兴, a solar collector with a sand-mix concrete absorber with
buried-in ground 关4兴, an air collector including rock particles as
the absorber 关5兴, and a metallic box solar collector 关6兴. De Beijer
关7兴 described the development of a novel ICS system that incor-
porates two cylindrical tubes, an outer absorbing tube coated with
selective surface and an inner storage tube. Transparent insulation
materials 共TIM兲 represent a special class of thermal insulation in
which a transparent cellular array is immersed in an air layer. TIM
is transparent in nature and reduces unwanted heat losses. The
performance characteristics of solar transparent honeycomb-
insulated passive hot water systems using both water and ground
as collector/storage was investigated 关4,8兴. A comparative study of
TIM-insulated cuboids ICS system was carried out by Reddy and
Kaushika 关9兴.
Bhargava 关10兴 carried out the transient analysis of a solar water
heater based on phase-changing material by replacing the solid-
liquid block of the phase-changing material by a fictitious solid.
Tiwari et al. 关11兴 carried out an analysis of a PCM storage water
heater by incorporating the effect of water flow through a parallel
plate placed at the solid-liquid interface. A theoretical model for
the cylindrical latent heat storage system was presented for per-
formance evaluation 关12兴. Hassan and Fath 关13,14兴 investigated
the thermal performance of a simple design solar air heater where
the conventional flat plate absorber was replaced by a set of tubes
filled with thermal energy storage material. Boy et al. 关15兴 pro-
posed an ICS system based on a salt-hydrate PCM as an appliance
Contributed by the Solar Energy Engineering Division of ASME for publication
in the JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING. Manuscript received March 13, 2006;
final manuscript received May 11, 2007. Review conducted by Andreas Luzzi.
was encapsulated in a special corrugated-fin heat exchanger,
which increased the cost of the system. The use of a PCM in an
ICS solar collector was investigated experimentally for enhance-
ment of heat transfer 关16,17兴. Velraj et al. 关18兴 suggested that most
phase-change materials with high-energy storage density have
moderate thermal conductivity, and hence, heat transfer enhance-
ment techniques are required for any latent heat thermal storage
共LHTS兲 applications. The heat transfer in phase-change material
with internal fins was studied numerically and experimentally
over a wide range. The numerical methods most commonly used
in the literature were based on the enthalpy method and the effec-
tive heat capacity method. The heat transfer enhancement analysis
in a finned PCM storage with the heat exchanger was investigated
both numerically and experimentally 关19–21兴. Ahmet et al. 关22兴
carried out an experiment to investigate the thermal performance
of a water-PCM solar collector. The solar gain and heat loss char-
acteristics of the PCM-based solar ICS water-heating system us-
ing a TIM cover have been investigated numerically in this paper.
Modeling of PCM-Based Solar ICS Water Heating
System
The solar ICS system consists of a rectangular cavity having
two stainless steel sections and is covered with a transparent in-
sulation material. The top section 共1 m ⫻ 1 m ⫻ 0.05 m兲 is filled
with a phase change material 共paraffin wax兲 and the bottom sec-
tion 共1 m ⫻ 1 m ⫻ 0.1 m兲 with water. The top absorber surface of
the system receives the solar radiation and subsequently transmits
it to the paraffin wax. The bottom and side surfaces are covered
with opaque insulation. This system is tilted at 30 deg 共chosen兲,
which is the yearly optimized angle for Chennai 共80.18 deg E,
13.05 deg N兲, India. The system configuration is shown in the Fig.
1. The thermophysical properties of the materials used in the sys-
tem are illustrated in Table 1. Two-dimensional thermal modeling
is carried out for the water and PCM-based solar integrated col-
lector storage system. The first simulation is performed without
any heat transfer enhancement technique, such as fins. Later simu-
lations are performed with 4, 9, and 19 fins inside the wax having
a pitch of 20 cm, 10 cm, and 5 cm, respectively. The left side
surface of the system is inclined at 45 deg to enhance melting of

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 Fig. 2 Diurnal variation of solar radiation, ambient tempera-
Fig. 1 Integrated-collector-storage solar water heater with fins ture, and average water temperature for the different
inside the wax configurations

wax. The gravitational force on the system acts downward, and a

buoyant flow develops because of thermally induced density gra-
dients.
Governing Equations for Water Enclosure
The equations that describe momentum and energy transfer in
free convection originate from conservation principles. The inertia
and viscous forces remain important, as does energy transfer by
convection and diffusion. The governing equations 关23兴 for this
model can be written as:
Continuity equation
⳵␳ ⳵共␳u兲 ⳵共␳v兲
adequately meet the requirements of the FLUENT solver. The
boundary conditions for the solar integrated collector storage wa-
ter heater are as follows: The solar radiation, after transmission
through the TIM cover is absorbed by the top surface of the tank.
Some part of absorbed energy is used to heat the water, and the
rest of the energy is lost to the surroundings by conduction, con-
vection and radiation.
The energy balance for the absorber plane can be written as
Q共t兲 = Ac共␣␶兲effG共t兲 − UlossAc关Tab共t兲 − Tamb共t兲兴 共4兲
The radiant energy 共G共t兲兲 at the top surface of the system at time
t is assumed to be sinusoidal in nature and is given by:

冉 冊
+ + =0 共1兲
⳵t ⳵x ⳵y 3.14t
G共t兲 = Igmax sin when 0 艋 t 艋 39,600
Navier–Stokes equation X-momentum 39,600.0
⳵u
⳵t
⳵u ⳵u
+u +v =v
⳵x ⳵y
⳵ 2u ⳵ 2u
+
⳵x2 ⳵ y 2
冉 冊
− ␤g共T − T0兲cos ␪ 共2兲
The ambient temperature is a function of time t. The diurnal varia-
tion of the ambient temperature on a typical winter day at Chennai
共80.18 deg E, 13.05 deg N兲 is shown in Fig. 2. Based on the
Energy equation experimental data, the ambient temperature is represented by a
⳵T
⳵t
⳵T ⳵T
+u +v =␣
⳵x ⳵y
+ 冉
⳵ 2T ⳵ 2T
⳵x2 ⳵ y 2
冊 共3兲
polynomial 共R2 = 0.9957兲 with different time intervals and is given
in non dimensional form as

The net heat flux and ambient temperature are given as boundary ␪amb共␶兲 = − 16.739␶3 + 8.3133␶2 + 0.4219␶ − 0.0121
conditions for top surface, whereas the bottom and side surfaces
are adiabatic conditions. The variable heat flux condition 共Fig. 2兲
␶ ⬍ 0.375共9 h兲 共5兲
is chosen as a boundary condition at the absorber plate, which is
␪amb共␶兲 = − 1.3612␶3 + 4.1131␶2 − 4.4092␶ + 1.6895
written as a user-defined function to interpret and compile in FLU-
ENT. In the heat flux condition, solar radiation has been considered
␶ ⬎ 0.375共9 h兲 共6兲
as a sinusoidal function and heat loss is a function of temperature
difference for a given geometry. The ambient temperature data are where ␪amb共␶兲 = 关Tamb共t兲 − Ti兴 / Ti and the nondimensional time ␶
used directly as a polynomial function. The boundary conditions = t / tmax

Table 1 Thermophysical properties of materials

Item Material Properties

Tank and fins Stainless steel Density 8027.2 kg/ m3

共water heating Specific heat 502.1 J / kg
systems兲 Thermal conductivity 16.26 W / 共m K兲
Thickness of fin 1.5 mm
Phase change Paraffin wax Density 750 kg/ m3
material Specific heat 2200 J / kg
Thermal conductivity 0.2 W / 共m K兲
Kinematic viscosity 0.00415 kg/ 共m s兲
Thermal expansion coefficient 0.000815 1 / K
Latent heat 175000 J / kg
Solidus temperature 315 K
Liqudus temperature 320 K

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 Fig. 5 Variation of liquid fraction of phase change material
with time

Fig. 3 Maximum water temperature in solar ICS system

⳵vជ
␳ + ␳共vជ · ⵜ兲vជ = − ⵜp + ␮ⵜ2vជ + ␳gជ ␤共T − TO兲 共9兲
The radiant energy at the top surface of the system 共G共t兲兲 and ⳵t
the ambient temperature 共Tamb共t兲兲 are calculated by considering Energy equation:

冉 冊
the following parameters: initial ambient temperature 共Ti兲
⳵T
= 293.15 K, global solar radiation 共Igmax兲 = 900 W / m2, effective ␳c p + vជ · ⵜT = ⵜ共k ⵜ T兲 共10兲
absorptance-transmittance product 共␣␶兲eff = 0.89, collector/ ⳵t
absorber area 共Ac兲 = 1.0 m2, and maximum time period for the For the solid PCM and the enclosure, the continuity and momen-
ambient temperature data 共tmax兲 = 86,400 s 共24 h兲. The heat losses tum equations can be ignored because there is no convection ef-
from the system include conduction, convection, and radiation fect on the materials. The energy equation is given as
losses from the top TIM cover. The overall heat loss coefficient
for the system is taken as Uloss = 2.03 W / 共m2 K兲. The boundary
conditions of the sides and bottom surfaces are assumed perfectly
␳sc ps 冉 冊 ⳵Ts
⳵t
= ⵜ共ks ⵜ Ts兲 共11兲

insulated, are taken as ⳵T / ⳵x = 0 and ⳵T / ⳵y = 0. The energy avail- The subscript s denotes the solid PCM or the enclosure. The en-
able at the absorber plane Q共t兲 can be estimated by substituting ergy balance for the solid-liquid interface in the melting process is
the values of G共t兲 and Tamb共t兲 in Eq. 共4兲. A user-defined program expressed as
is generated to give sinusoidal heat flux input on absorber plate
accounting for heat losses. The useful heat gain is expressed as ks 冏 冏 冏 冏
⳵Ts
⳵n S
− kl
⳵Ts
⳵n S
= ␳ sL
dSn
dt
共12兲
Qu = Qin − Qloss 共7兲
where S is the solid-liquid phase-change interface; n is the normal
of the solid-liquid interface and L the latent heat of the PCM
Governing Equations for PCM Enclosure: Melting and fusion. In the solidification process, the subscripts l and s are
Solidification Model interchanged and the latent heat of fusion L is replaced with −L in
The governing equations for transient analysis of the melting of Eq. 共12兲.
the phase-change material include the Navier–Stokes 共momen-
tum兲 equations, the continuity equation and the energy equation. Numerical Solution
Boussinesq approximation is used to model the buoyancy forces. The numerical modeling and analysis of the solar integrated
The equations are given in tensor notation as: collector storage system has been carried out using the commer-
Continuity equation: cial CFD software FLUENT. The geometry modeling and mesh
were generated in GAMBIT. An enthalpy porosity technique is used
ⵜ · vជ = 0 共8兲
Momentum equation:

Fig. 6 Stratification „Tmax − Tmin… of water in the solar ICS

Fig. 4 Minimum water temperature in solar ICS system system

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 in FLUENT for modeling the solidification/melting process. In this
technique, the melt interface was not tracked explicitly. Instead, a
quantity called the liquid fraction, which indicates the fraction of
the cell volume that is in the liquid form, is associated with each
cell in the domain. The liquid fraction has been computed based
on the enthalpy balance. The meshy region is a region in which
the liquid fraction lies between 0 and 1. The meshy zone was
modeled as a pseudo porous medium in which the porosity de-
creases from 1 to 0 as the material solidifies. When the material
has fully solidified in the cell, porosity becomes zero and, hence,
the velocities drop to zero. Some assumptions were made in the
numerical calculations: the heat conductivity and density of the
phase-change material and the enclosures are constant; the values
for the PCM were chosen as average of the solid and liquid ma-
terial properties. The problem was solved in two-dimensional do-
main. The heat transfer in the z direction and the convection heat
transfer coefficient in the liquid PCM during the solidification
process have been neglected. Fig. 7 Variation of heat transfer coefficient with time for the
wax-water interface
Results and Discussion
The thermal modeling and analysis of water and phase-change
material solar integrated collector storage 共ICS兲 system has been configuration was optimized with some modification in design to
carried out for its performance prediction. The solid-liquid inter- achieve the complete melting of wax in the enclosure. In the melt-
face and circulation patterns in the wax were tracked. The flow ing process, the heat is transferred from the walls to the PCM first
pattern and thermal stratification in the water were analyzed. Fins by conduction and later by natural convection. The natural con-
were introduced inside the wax to enhance the melting rate. The vection speeds up the melting process. The effect of natural con-

Fig. 8 Temperature contours for the different configurations at 6.00 h next day „after 24 h…

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 Fig. 9 Liquid fraction variation contours for the different configurations at 6.00 h next day „after 24 h…

vection in the molten PCM causes a higher rate of melting near other configurations 共Fig. 4兲. The diurnal variation of the liquid
the top of the enclosure. In the early stage of melting, the velocity fraction of PCM during melting is shown in Fig. 5. There is al-
of liquid PCM due to buoyancy force is small. It increases, and most a complete melting 共95%兲 of the wax with the nine fins
convection in the melt becomes dominant until the magnitude of configuration, whereas for the other configurations it is lower. The
the velocity begins to decrease due to the temperature difference configuration without fins shows only 65% melting.
in the liquid PCM becoming uniform. The diurnal variation of 共Tmax − Tmin兲 for different configura-
The thermal performance of the water heater is depicted by its
temperature increase and its ability to retain that temperature dur-
ing nocturnal hours. The diurnal average water temperature in ICS
system along with ambient temperature and solar radiation, with-
out and with 4, 9, and 19 fins is shown in Fig. 2. The configuration
with nine fins shows the maximum heat retention in comparison to
other configurations. The average water temperature increases
during daytime and reached to maximum of about 48– 51° C
around 19.00– 20.00 h, then drops slightly because of nocturnal
heat losses. The diurnal variation of maximum temperature for
different configuration is shown in Fig. 3. It shows that in the
configuration without fins, the maximum temperature is high com-
pared to other configurations having fins. In the configuration
without fins, the solar radiation absorbed by the top plate in-
creases the temperature in the top portion of the wax enclosure,
rather than transmitting heat to the remaining portion. Because of
this, the temperature of the water at the top corner increases. The
minimum water temperature continues to increase during the
whole night reaching its highest in the next day morning. For nine Fig. 10 Comparison of the average water temperature without
fins, the minimum water temperature is higher, in comparison to fins with experimental results from Ahmet et al. †22‡

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 Table 2 Diurnal maximum, minimum and average water temperatures for different configura-
tion of the system

At 6 h
Tmax At 19 h 共next day morning兲 Temperature
Solar ICS in 24 h drop during
system 共at 19– 20 h兲 Tmax Tmin Tavg Tmax Tmin Tavg night
configuration 共°C兲 共°C兲 共°C兲 共°C兲 共°C兲 共°C兲 共°C兲 共°C兲

Without fins 42.6 92.6 23.7 42.0 57.0 23.6 40.5 2.1
With 4 fins 48.2 82.1 27.2 47.8 53.7 38.6 46.6 1.6
With 9 fins 50.5 82.6 31.3 49.7 53.8 42.8 49.1 1.4
With 19 fins 48.4 81.4 29.3 47.8 53.5 40.7 46.6 1.8

tions is shown in Fig. 6. The configuration with nine fins shows
low stratification, which implies more uniform water temperature,
in comparison to the 4 and 19-fin configurations. The configura-
tion without fins shows the highest stratification, having a more
nonuniform water temperature in the enclosure. Comparison of
the different configurations in terms of the heat transfer coefficient
for water is shown in Fig. 7. The configuration with nine fins has
better heat transfer coefficient than the other configurations. The
temperature contours after 24 h 共one day兲 in the PCM-based solar
ICS water heating system are shown Fig. 8. In this type of passive
water heating system, the thermally stratified liquid is obtained
due to natural circulation. The temperature of the contained liquid
varies from bottom to top, being lower at the bottom and higher at
the top. Therefore, the heat losses are maximum at the top and
minimum at the bottom. The liquid fraction contours in the system
24 h 共one day兲 are shown in Fig. 9. It can be observed that the top
portion wax melts first, then the solid-liquid interface moves
slowly to the bottom corner.
The simulations were carried out on diurnal basis. The configu-
ration with nine fins shows the maximum rise in temperature dur-
ing heating and lower drop in temperature during cooling com-
pared other configurations. In the nine-fins configuration, the heat
available at the absorber can easily be penetrated into the PCM
and converting it to liquid quickly. Comparatively, the heat is to
transmit longer distances to liquefy the PCM in the 4-fin configu-
ration. In contrast, in the 19-fin configuration, more time is re-
quired to heat the absorber material 共fins兲. The nine-fin configu-
ration seems the optimum and has to be validated by a new
experiment.
The present model has been validated with experimental data
available in the literature. The solar integrated collector storage
system 共1.8 m ⫻ 1.8 m兲 with single glass cover and without fins
was compared to experimental data given by Ahmet et al. 关22兴.
The simulation model is in reasonable agreement with the experi-
mental data 共Fig. 10兲. The overall heat loss coefficient 共Uloss兲
= 8.15 W / m2 ° C was considered in simulation model to predict
the heat losses. For a practical system, the heat losses are involved
in edges and corners apart from other surfaces 共top, bottom, and
side兲. The heat losses from edges and corners were unaccounted in
the model. The performance of the system considerably influenced
by night cooling. Therefore, the deviation in the water temperature
is higher 共⬃5 ° C兲 during the nighttime. The bottom corner does
not receive enough heat to melt 共only 65%兲 the wax; therefore, the
enclosure surface area has been increased and the side surface is
leaned down by 45 deg. The configurations with fins have higher
melting rate than the configuration without fin. During nighttime,
wax starts solidifying because of the nocturnal heat losses. The
water temperatures for different configuration during the evening
and next morning after night cooling are illustrated in Table 2. The
vertical temperature distribution in the water storage section of the
system was resulted in stratification. The maximum temperature
was attained in the top of water storage section, whereas mini-
mum at the bottom. Even though the configuration without fins
attended highest maximum temperatures, but there was no signifi-
cant change in the bottom part of the water section. The water
reached its maximum average water temperature between 19.00 h
and 20.00 h. The water was collected at 6 h 共next day morning兲
with a final average temperature of 40.5° C, 46.6° C, 49.1° C, and
46.6° C, respectively, for without and with the 4-, 9-, and 19-fin
configurations. The nocturnal heat losses reduce the performance
considerably. Among all the configurations, nine fins showed
higher maximum average water temperature of 50.5° C with only
about 1.4° C nighttime temperature drop. The system configura-
tion with nine fins seems the optimum.
Conclusions
The thermal modeling of a PCM-based solar ICS water-heating
system was carried out for optimization of solar gain and heat loss
characteristics. A novel type of solar collector combining PCM
and water might be an alternative to the conventional hot water
solar collectors, if the absorption and insulation characteristic of
the collector are improved. The solar ICS system with nine fins
showed the best performance because the wax was melted com-
pletely. The latent energy stored in this configuration was higher
than that of other configurations. The system attained high heat
retention with 1.4° C nocturnal temperature drop. The PCM-based
solar TIM integrated collector storage system was found to be
advantageous over conventional solar water heating systems in
terms of solar gain and heat loss characteristics.
Nomenclature
Ac ⫽ collector/absorber area, m2
C p ⫽ specific heat of water, J/共kg K兲
g ⫽ acceleration due to gravity, m / s2
Ig max ⫽ global solar radiation, W / m2
ks ⫽ thermal conductivity of solid PCM, W/共m K兲
kl ⫽ thermal conductivity of liquid PCM, W/共m K兲
L ⫽ latent heat, J/kg
m ⫽ water mass, kg
p ⫽ pressure of liquid PCM, Pa
Q共t兲 ⫽ heat absorbed by the collector at time t, W
Qin ⫽ heat available at the absorber surface, W
Qloss ⫽ heat loss from the system, W
Qu ⫽ useful heat collected by water in the collector,
W
S ⫽ solid liquid interface
Tab ⫽ absorber temperature, K
Tamb ⫽ ambient temperature, K
Tavg ⫽ average water temperature, K
T f ⫽ final temperature of water, K
Ti ⫽ initial temperature, K
Tl ⫽ temperature of liquid PCM, K
Tmax ⫽ maximum water temperature, K
Tmin ⫽ minimum water temperature, K
To ⫽ reference temperature, K
Ts ⫽ temperature of solid PCM, K
t ⫽ time, s
Uloss ⫽ overall heat loss coefficient, W / 共m2 K兲

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 u ⫽ X velocity, m/s
v ⫽ Y velocity, m/s
vជ ⫽ velocity of liquid PCM, m/s
共␣␶兲eff ⫽ effective absorptance-transmittance product of
the collector
␤ ⫽ coefficient of thermal expansion, 1 / K
␮ ⫽ dynamic viscosity, kg/共m.s兲
␳l ⫽ density of liquid PCM, kg/ m3
␪ ⫽ inclination angle, degrees.
␣ ⫽ thermal diffusivity, m2 / s
␶ ⫽ nondimensional time
␪amb ⫽ nondimensional ambient temperature
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