Abstract
An evacuated solar water heater (ESWH) has been designed and modelled using a commercial software package, and its performance was analysed using the computational fluid dynamics under the influence of a phase changing material (PCM) and a nano-doped phase changing material (N-DPCM). The computational model was developed using a real-time experimental set-up and the model was validated using the experimental data of the ESWH (before it was coupled with the PCM/N-DPCM). The paraffin was used as the PCM and 1.0% nano-CeO2 particles infused paraffin was considered to be the optimized N-DPCM as per the previous data. Then, the computational model of the ESWH was developed in two scenarios namely, ESWH with PCM and ESWH with N-DPCM for further examination. The PRESTO (PREssure STaggering Option) algorithm had been used for the approximation. The simulation was run for twenty-hours of time frame, includes twelve hours of charging and another twelve hours of discharging with the PCM/N-DPCM. The variation in water temperature and the PCM/N-DPCM temperature have been examined in the analysis and the outcomes were related with the real time trials. The results evidenced that the computational results are found to be agreeable with the experimental data with the negligible deviation, less than 5.0%. Further, the use of N-DPCM displayed the better results, when comparing to the PCM.