Performance Analysis of Solar Thermal Powered Chicken Egg Incubator with Thermal Energy Storage

Abstract

Poultry production is one the most important in household income and food security of the farmers in Ethiopia. It is mainly from traditional producers which are based on a broody hen. Researches show that Poultry production is one of the economic sources of our community. The production is performed traditionally by natural incubations and electric-powered incubators. In this work, a detailed experimental study has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the solar thermal chicken egg incubator with thermal energy storage for hatching chicken eggs. The work aims to study the performance of solar thermal chicken egg incubators with thermal energy storage under Adama weather conditions. Temperature and humidity are the most important physical factors that affect the system's operation (eggs incubation and embryonic development). In this study, solar thermal energy is used as the energy source of the system. Solar radiation is abundant in the city. It is estimated as average global radiation of 29.7MJ/m2 /day which gives an average of 6.63 kWh/m2 /day with an average relative humidity of 54.6%. The flat plate collector with an expanded mesh is used for converting solar radiation into thermal energy. The values of hourly hot air temperature leaving the solar collector are collected for March 31, April 04, and April 08, 2021. The temperature starts increasing morning from 8 PM and then decreasing to 6 AM. The average hourly temperature is measured as 52 ℃. The maximum air temperature obtained is at 2 PM i.e.75℃. The collector has an average efficiency of 37.10%. The total required heat for the system and keeping it at the incubation temperature per day is estimated as 4MJ. For solving the intermittence behavior of the solar radiation the thermal energy storage unit is used. The LHS is selected and designed to store the required thermal energy for the system. The 15 kg of paraffin wax enclosed in a rectangular container has been used as latent heat energy storage of the system. It was designed for storing the thermal energy for the system, but only 61.10% (percent) of energy required by the system is recovered by the system. The average incubator chamber temperature has been obtained as 34℃ with a mean deviation of 5℃. The result reveals that the stored energy in the storage system is insufficient for sustaining the chamber temperature for 24hours. Therefore three kilograms of paraffin wax have been used additionally with 200Watts electric heater for the system. By doing this the result obtained from the system has been reached with an average eggs hatching ability of only 20% of the loaded eggs. Since thermal efficiency reduction of the system is affecting directly the hatchability of the eggs of the system; it is better to use an auxiliary heat source (like a PV subsystem).