Flat Plate Solar Air Heater with Latent Heat Storage

Our work contains two parts, first is an experimental study of the solar air heater with a simple flow and forced convection, we can use thatlaste oneit in many engineering's sectors as solardrying, space heating in particular. The second part is a numerical study with ansys fluent 15 of the storage of part of this solar thermal energy produced, using latent heat by using phase change materials (PCM). In the experimental parts, we realize and tested our solar air heater in URER.MS ADRAR, locate in southwest Algeria. Where we measured the solarradiation, ambient temperature, air flow, thetemperature of the absorber, glasses and the outlet temperature of the solar air heater from the Sunrise to the sunset. In the second part, we added a PCM at outlet part of the solar air heater. This PCM store a part of the energy produced in the day to be used in peak period at evening by using the latent heat where the PCMs present a grateful storagesystem. A numerical study of the fusion or also named the charging of the PCM using ANSYS Fluent 15, this code use the method of enthalpies to solve the fusion and solidification formulations. Furthermore, to improve the conjugate heat transfer between the heat transfer fluid (Air heated in solar plate air heater) and the PCM, we simulate the effect of adding fins to our geometry. Also, four user define are write in C code to describe the thermophysicalpropriety of the PCM, and the inlet temperature of our geometry which is the temperature at the outflow of the solar heater.