A Computational Study on Utilizing Phase Change Material With a Condenser to Improve air Conditioning System Performance

The efficacy of employing multiple cylindrical phase change materials (PCM) to enhance the performance of an air conditioning (AC) unit is examined in this study. The objective of the present study is to examine the effects of combining an AC unit with a cylindrical PCM container configuration on the PCM discharge process and the performance of the AC system. The procedure involves the connection of a heat exchanger with a cold energy storage PCM to the condenser of the AC. During the daytime, the warm surrounding air is cooled and then transmitted to the AC unit's condenser. Four different turbulence models, that is, the SST k-omega$$ k-\omega $$, standard k-omega$$ k-\omega $$, Realizable k-epsilon$$ k-\varepsilon $$ and RNG k-epsilon$$ k-\varepsilon $$ have been considered for the present computational study. The investigation has been performed for different air flow rates, that is, 33.6, 42, and 49 L/s$$ \mathrm{L}/\mathrm{s} $$ for a constant inlet air temperature of 308.15 K. The present outcomes indicate that as the flow rate rises, the air temperature inside the domain increases and the solid PCM starts melting. It is noted that complete discharging time for multi-cylindrical PCM reduces as the air flow rate rises which are around 13.36, 11.03, and 9.94 h for airflow rates of 33.6, 42, and 49 L/s$$ \mathrm{L}/\mathrm{s} $$, respectively. The maximum achieved increase in the COP is around 94.49%, 88.68%, and 87.57% at airflow rates of 33.6, 42, and 49 L/s, respectively, for the multi-cylindrical PCM throughout the summer. It is found that for the same temperature, as the airflow rate rises, the consumed power saving rises.