الفهرس 
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUNDOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Increasing the photovoltaic panel, PV temperature reduces its efficiency and limits its emerging applications, particularly in hot climatic conditions. Employing phase change material, PCM at the backside of the PV panel represents a potential solution to keep the panel at lower temperatures for a longer time. However, the net effects of PCM mass with different finned containers need more investigations. In this study, numerical modeling for the transport of mass, momentum, and energy within RT-35 PCM that filling in different shapes of finned enclosures has been developed, considering two base options in the comparisons; the first method is assigning the occupied back distance to a fixed value, while the second method is keeping the total mass in the enclosures unchanged. The results of each approach are compared to the basic rectangular enclosure for the PCM without extended surfaces. The case without fins (basic case) has attained the best performance based on the first approach, affected by the highest mass of PCM within the rectangular enclosure. However, the increase in the rear surface areas and convection currents in the liquid phase of the PCM play important roles in decreasing PV panel temperature, hence improving the performance based on the second approach. Accordingly, the rectangular container has shown the worst performance of the PV panel affected by the minimum phase change time recorded among the different cases and the temperature has reduced by 16.1 °C with an increase in the average output power of 4.9% in the best case. Furthermore, the temperature profiles and velocity variations have been simulated and discussed during the melting processes of the PCM for different extended surfaces for both approaches.