THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Thermal Science - Online First

Authors of this Paper

External Links

Long Zhang

,

Rui Chang

,

Chengbin Zhang

,

Cheng Yu

online first only

Improving thermal performance and energy production of photo-voltaic thermal collector by bifurcating tree-like cooling channels

ABSTRACT
Photovoltaic thermal collectors with cooling channels suffers from poor temperature uniformity and high heat loss at high radiation intensities. However, traditional cooling channels are unable to address these specific heat dissipation requirements. In this research, the photovoltaic/thermal collector within the nature-inspired bifurcating tree-like cooling channels is designed and compared with the traditional parallel cooling channels. A theoretical model for heat exchange in the photovoltaic/thermal collector is developed. The system's performance with different structural parameters is investigated. The results indicate that the nature-inspired bifurcating tree-like II-type cooling channel exhibits superior overall performance for the photovoltaic/thermal collector. Besides, the average photovoltaic module surface temperature drops by 12.47K and the system's electric efficiency rises by 0.84% by growing the inlet speed. Furthermore, the lowest pressure drops is 13.62Pa in the cooling channel when the number of grades is 4 and the inlet mass flow rate is 0.00256kg/s. With the number of grades increasing, the average temperature of the photovoltaic module reduces. When the channel bifurcation angle is 1.0α-type and the inlet mass flow rate is 0.0124kg/s the system's electric efficiency is 13.66% and the PV/T collector's performance is optimal.
KEYWORDS
Photovoltaic/thermal, electric efficiency, numerical model
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2024-11-03
PAPER REVISED: 2024-12-12
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2024-12-20
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2025-02-16
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI241103021Z
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Improving thermal performance and energy production of photo-voltaic thermal collector by bifurcating tree-like cooling channels