The temperature of the hot water withdrawn for a solar water heater varies throughout a day. However, for process heat applications, constant temperature water can be required from a solar water heater. This is usually achieved by providing additional auxiliary heat input. Disadvantageously, such extra water heating incurs additional cost and, if met from fossil fuels, produces greenhouse gas emissions. An alternative approach of using a phase change material to moderate variations in the outlet temperature of hot water from the store is examined in this paper using an experimentally-validated CFD model of a solar water heater with a phase change material thermal energy storage in the hot water tank. The CFD model was solved by COMSOL Multiphysics. For a particular solar water heating system, incorporating an encapsulated paraffin wax phase change material has been shown to able to deliver up to 1200 L of hot water at a temperature of 60 °C ± 2 °C for more than 8 h.

太阳能热水器抽取的热水的温度全天都在变化。然而，对于过程热应用，太阳能热水器可能需要恒温水。这通常通过提供额外的辅助热输入来实现。不利的是，这种额外的水加热会产生额外的成本，并且如果用化石燃料来满足，则会产生温室气体排放。本文使用经过实验验证的太阳能热水器 CFD 模型研究了一种使用相变材料来缓和来自商店的热水出口温度变化的替代方法，该太阳能热水器在热水中具有相变材料热能存储。水箱。CFD 模型由 COMSOL Multiphysics 求解。对于特定的太阳能热水系统，