Thermal, efficiency and power output evaluation of pyramid, hexagonal and conical forms as solar panel

Abstract

Through the present investigation, the thermal and power output of novel-shaped solar panels are evaluated. For the cooling of the mentioned forms, forced air flow was utilized. Three novel shapes, of Pyramid, Hexagonal, and Conical which had the equal lateral surface were considered. For the simulation, an open source CFD software was utilized. The lateral surfaces were put under identical amount of heat flux. Air as the coolant fluid was injected with constant inlet temperature from the trapdoors at the bottom of different shaped structures. Three different values of heat flux and air injection rate were evaluated for each shape. The outcomes presented that the conical shaped solar panel exhibits better thermal performance than other geometries. Furthermore, conical form finds the least temperature that was about 10.5 °C less than that of the pyramid-shaped panel. Furthermore, it was revealed that the corners of pyramid and hexagonal-shaped solar panels have higher temperature. Also, it was found that the efficiency of conical shaped panel was up to 8.4% more than that of pyramid-shaped panel.