Simulation of heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids as cooling media for flat solar panel

Abstract: PV solar panel has been widely used as a source of electricity generation. Heat irradiance from sunlight will increase the temperature of the PV solar panel which leads to the increase in its resistance to electricity being generated. Different types of nanofluids including CuO-H2O, TiO2-H2O, Al2O3-H2O have been simulated and show positive effect on reducing the maximum temperature of the surface of PV solar panel. However the results show no significant differences on temperature reduction among different nanofluids even though we can notice a slightly more drops on PV solar panel using CuO- H2O nanofluids. However, by varying different parameters such as the nanoparticles concentration in the nanofluids, the results may vary. The present study has been performed by setting the coordinates of UCTS in ANSYS Fluent with the time being set at 12.00pm to simulate the solar heat irradiance at that particular time and location.

Keywords: Nanofluids; convection cooling; Solar Panels.