Numerical Analysis of Solar Pavement Collector for Malaysian Environment

Tapping into solar renewable energy can accelerate Malaysia’s energy economy, and one of the ways to achieve this is through solar pavement technology. Solar pavement technology is an emerging field, and Malaysia, through its green policies, welcomes such innovations to promote environmental sustainability. This research investigates the use of conductive pipes for thermal energy harvesting in solar pavement collectors. Design software, Solidworks 2020, and simulation software, Ansys Fluent 19.2, were utilised to optimise the design parameters of the solar pavement collector. These parameters included the pipe materials (copper, stainless steel, and aluminium), pipe depths (30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80mm), and pipe spacing (70, 80, 100, 130, and 150mm). Results show that a serpentine configuration with copper piping exhibited the highest heat efficiency, producing an outlet temperature of 54.21°C at a pipe depth of 50 mm and a centre-to-centre spacing of 80 mm. Additionally, the water flow rate of the optimised pipe design reached an acceptable value of 1.562 m/s. Stainless steel, arranged in a serpentine pattern, achieved a maximum temperature of 54.92 ºC, 1.3% higher than copper in the same configuration. However, aluminium in a serpentine pattern showed a 2.9% decrease compared to stainless steel. The generated warm water has potential for household use, reducing reliance on conventional electricity and contributing to a reduction in carbon footprint, given Malaysia's heavy reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation.