High power and energy density of a wavy PCM unit embedded in a solar air heater utilizing fractional porous media

•Experimental and numerical investigations are performed.•PCM unit is designed and optimized to obtain high power and energy density.•Fractional porous region (ψ) and porosity (ϕ) is used in the PCM unit.•Using optimized PCM unit solar air heater delivers air at ≥ 5 °C after 5:00 pm for 5 hrs.•Economic analysis presented the operating cost of 0.02 INR/kWh at optimum condition. This experimental and numerical investigation presents the optimization of a wavy PCM unit to obtain high power and energy density with and without porous media for solar air heater applications at low ambient temperature (12oC≤Ta≤24oC). Hence, paraffin wax as a thermal energy storage material and wire mesh as a porous media are selected in this investigation. The effect of the fractional porous region (25%≤ψ≤100%) and porosity (94%≤ϕ≤100%) of the PCM unit is investigated to obtain desired power and energy density. The obtained numerical results revealed that the porous fraction region (ψ) of 50 % and porosity (ϕ) of 96 % are the optimum value in wavy PCM unit to obtain high power and energy density. As an extension of this work, the optimized thermal energy storage unit is further utilized in an impinging jet solar air heater design to obtain instant and long thermal backups and, consequently, outlet air at high temperature. The wavy PCM unit embedded impinging jet solar air heater is experimentally investigated under outdoor conditions for two cases; viz, to obtain instant and long thermal backup. To obtain instant and long thermal backups, a full day and alternative operations are conducted. Whereas, in case of alternative operation, charging of the PCM unit is only done up to the maximum sunshine hour of the day and solar air heater is operated during the night to utilize stored thermal energy at high power and energy density to deliver outlet air at high temperature for the long duration. Moreover, the experimental results revealed a maximum outlet air temperature of 59 °C at 0.01 kg/s and a significant thermal energy backup up to 5 h at an outlet air temperature gain of ≥ 5 °C. The economic analysis is also conducted for the solar air heater design and the operating cost is obtained as 0.02 INR/kWh at the optimum condition.