Enhanced honey badger optimization of performance analysis of evacuated tube heat pipe solar collector integrated with PCM storage unit

Abstract

A hybrid method for improving the efficiency of heat pipe evacuated-tube solar-collector (HPETC) is proposed for incorporating the phase-change materials (PCMs) in both off-demand and regular operation. The proposed hybrid approach is called an improved honey badger algorithm (HBA). The crossover and mutation operator improves the honey badger's (HB) foraging habit. The proposed approach aims to generate hot air at various rates of airflow under incident and nonincident solar-radiation situations. The analysis is done on the effects of different energy-storage systems and the position of the heat pipe (HP). In a normal heat-pipe evacuated-tube solar collector, the HP is put within the glass tube that is closer to the upper-surface, and it is held in place through an aluminum fin. However, in the proposed method, the HP is rearranged in the tube's middle. In order to identify the PCM with the highest average-fin temperature, the temperatures of the area-weighted average-fin are measured and compared throughout the glass tubes under typical conditions. For maximizing the thermal-energy carrying capability, the average liquid fraction volume of PCMs is measured for a 24-h flow period. The average liquid-fraction volume of PCMs is continuously observed in stagnation mode till the glass tube reaches the maximal value. The structured mesh patch conforming method is used to invalidate the HPETC system's constituent parts, improving numerical stability and convergence. The proposed method efficiency is 0.43. The proposed method shows high efficiency compared with other existing methods.