The major milestone achieved in the work period of March 23 to April 13th has been the full assembly & validation testing of the entire system. In this period, the team has been able to assemble the cold plate to the back of the solar panel through the mount that was acquired to keep the solar panel & cold plate at an angle of 45 degrees to replicate residential solar panels. Furthermore, the storage tank for the coolant, the water pump, and the heat exchanger were all attached to the cold plate along with the tubing through rebar wire in order to make the system look as cohesive as possible. The final result of the system can be seen in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Assembled System
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Additionally, during this time the team was also able to begin the required validation testing that was needed to prove that the solution we designed would meet the project deliverables that were laid out at the beginning of Capstone I. The data that was collected was collected through a variety of different tools. The main one was the thermocouples that captured the temperature data points at intervals of one minute over the course of 4 to 6 hours. The team also utilized a voltmeter that captured the voltage & amperage that was being outputted by the solar panel in order to calculate the power that was being consumed by the system as a whole. The luminescence reader was also utilized to grab as much as solar light readings as possible to measure in what conditions the system was best operating in.
Thus far, the team has been able to collect data for three whole days of testing using the thermocouple reader, voltmeters, & illuminance reader. For those three days, the data that we had collected was based on 4 locations. Two locations (T1, T2) were on the solar panel without the cold plate and then the other two were mirrored on the solar panel witht the cold plate (T3, T4). The graphs indicate the temperature readings of the data at the following locations.
Figure 2: Day 1 Testing
Figure 3: Day 2 Testing
Figure 4: Day 3 Testing
Based on these graphs above we can see that in Day 1, due to a technical error of the thermocouple reader, we were unable to collect as many data points as we would have liked but we were able to establish that the solar panel with e cold plate was reading temperature levels that were far below that of the solar panel without one. Day 2 of testing posed an interesting set of data where we realized that after the data was collected locations T2 & T4 were inverted due to us inserting the wrong channels into the thermal couple reader. While T2 & T4 proved to be inaccurate data, T1 and T3 yielded results of the cold-plated solar panel being cooler in the warmer temperatures allowing for more energy efficiency. Finally, on Day 3 of testing, we decided to test both solar panels during a cloudy day with limited sun exposure and our findings came to show that during such temperature conditions, our system makes no impact as the temperature readings were very similar to one another throughout the day.
As to what needs to be improved in the final two days of testing that remains is one of course to ensure that the thermocouple locations are properly placed as well as there is no inversion of the channels. Secondly, the team also feels that the data that is being collected can be further analyzed if the temperature of the inlet and outlet could be measured which is the next component that will be added to the validation testing to have a more cohesive analysis. Finally, some adjustments to the actual solar panel itself as in we are planning to attach the switch to a more efficient location so that there aren't so many wires being tangled up as well as the voltmeter. All this is meant to happen to ensure during the final two days of testing, the data is as accurate and complete as possible.
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