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Abstract
In the present study, a v-groove solar air collector is used for research purposes. The absorber of solar collector made by copper with an area of 1.9m
length and .97m.The surface of absorbent plate was covered by black paint. To insulate the collector, the glass wool with the thickness of 100 mm was
used. The experiments were conducted and data was collected from the collector. The results of the collector efficiency in the forced convection were
evaluated and their graphs were plotted. The results showed that the collector efficiency is about 35%. The low temperature difference between inlet and
outlet of the collector decreased its heat loss.
Key Words : v-groove, solar collector, efficiency, temperature
-----------------------
Introduction collectors include: no freezing, boiling or pressure
Energy in various forms has played an increasingly problems; generally lower weight and low construction
important role in worldwide economic progress and cost(5).Several improvements have been suggested in
industrialization.(1) Increased energy prices and the literature to enhance the performance of the system. The
continuous reduction of the Earths conventional fuels objective of the present study is to design , fabricate a v-
resources as well as the increased world-wide global groove solar air heater and study the thermal performance
warming have been the motivation for the recent growing of fabricated collector.
interest in alternative sources of energy, such as solar Design
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energy. The development of new and renewable energy To model the heaters considered, a number of simplifying
technologies is important for the future of a balanced global assumptions can be made to lay the foundations without
energy economy(2).Sunlight available freely as a direct and obscuring the basic physical situation. These assumptions
perennial source of energy provides a non-polluting are as follows:
reservoir of fuel. The simplest and the most efficient way to Thermal performance of heaters is steady-state.
utilize solar energy is to convert it into thermal energy for There are a negligible temperature drop through
heating applications by using solar collectors(1).Flat-plate the glass cover, the absorber plate and
collectors have an important place among applications of the bottom plate.
solar energy system. The main part of flat-plate collectors There is one-dimensional heat-flow through the
is black absorber surface.(3) . Flat plate solar air heaters are back insulation, which is in the direction
non-adiabatic radiative heat exchangers; they are perpendicular to the air flow.
essentially used at low temperature levels (T < 375K) in air The sky can be considered as a blackbody for long-
heating and drying systems (4).Solar air heaters are simple wavelength radiation at an equivalent
devices to heat air by utilizing solar energy. Such heaters sky-temperature.
are implemented in many applications which require low Loss through the front and back are to air at the
to moderate temperature below 60 oC.(5). Solar air heaters, same ambient temperature.
because of their inherent simplicity are cheap and most Dust and dirt on the heater and the shading of the
widely used collection devices. The main applications of heater absorbing-plate are negligible.
solar air heaters are space heating; seasoning of timber, Thermal inertia of heater components is negligible.
curing of industrial products, and these can also be Operating temperatures of heater components and
effectively used for curing/drying of concrete/clay building mean air-temperatures in the air
components. The solar air heater occupies an important channels are all assumed to be uniform.
place among solar heating system because of minimal use Temperature of the air varies only in the flow
of materials and cost. The thermal efficiency of solar air direction.
heaters in comparison of solar water heaters has been All air channels are assumed to be free of leakage.
found to be generally poor because of their inherently low Thermal losses through the heater backs are
heat transfer capability between the absorber plate and air mainly due to the conduction across the
flowing in the duct. In order to make the solar air heaters insulation: those caused by the wind and the
economically viable, their thermal efficiency needs to be thermal radiation of the insulation are
improved by enhancing the heat transfer coefficient.(3).On assumed negligible.
the other hand, the most important advantages for air-type
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thickness and Black chrome copper sheet of 2mm thickness E). The readings are noted and tabulated for every half an
acts as an absorber of incident solar radiation. The space hour. The air blower was switched on and the test was
between the absorber plate and the glass cover is 3 cm. The performed at various mass flow rates. The mass flow rate
electric motor with centrifugal fan of diameter 11 cm was was set to 0.02kg/sec, 0.025kg/sec 0.03kg/sec 0.035kg/sec
used to circulate air inside collector. Air is sent into air duct 0.04kg/sec 0.045kg/sec 0.05kg/sec. The velocity of air is
by a radial fan. Air speed can be varied by moving the air measured at the blower inlet and outlet point. Temperature
lid on the front side of the fan. This fan obtains 1650 readings, solar radiation, wind speed were noted and
revolutions per minute and power of 180 watts and Amps tabulated for every half an hour. Temperature at blower
0.81. A divergent rectangular duct of length 0.74 m and inlet, collector inlet, glass cover, absorber plate, hot air
width varying from 0.25 to 0.84 m made from galvanized inside the collector and collector outlet were recorded.
iron sheet of 0.812 mm connecting the motorfan assembly The Instrumentation used in the testing is as follows:
was provided at the entry of air heater to provide uniform 1) Pyranometer : Used to measure the intensity of solar
air circulation over absorber surface. radiation incident on the collector.
2)
Fig1(a) and (b) shows the outline design of the v-groove 2 ) Multimeter :Used to measure the voltage output of the
collector and thermal network for single cover solar air pyranometer, used to determine the intensity of solar
heater. radiation in W/m.
3) K-Type Thermocouples : Used to measure the
temperature at various positions in solar air heater.
Positions are Blower inlet, collector inlet , glass cover ,
absorber plate , two positions one above and below the
absorber plate, one below the glass cover and outlet
temperature.
4) Rotating Vane Anemometer Used to measure air
speed in m/s through the collector.
Thermal analysis
Fig 1(a) The thermal performance of a solar collector depends on
many parameters such as :
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- Ambient conditions : Ambient temperature, wind speed, Since the radiation absorption and heat loss at the absorber
solar radiation plate is considered
- Geometry of collector ( L, a, b ) based on the aperture area in this study, it is convenient to
- Characteristics of working fluid ( cp, k, , ) make the aperture collector area the reference collector area
- Inlet temperature of fluid ( Tin ) of the useful gain.
- Flow rate ( ) Collector Heat Removal Factor:
- Choice of the absorber material The collector heat removal factor, FR, is the ratio of
- Location of the construction : Inclination angle, direction the actual useful energy gain of a collector to the maximum
possible useful gain if the whole collector surface were at
The energy balance on the absorber is obtained by the fluid inlet temperature. It is defined as
equating the total heat gained to the total heat lost by the
heat absorber of the solar collector. Therefore, mCp (To -Ti )
IAc = QU+Qcond+Qconv+QR+QP FR = ----------------------
The three heat loss terms Qcond, Qconv and QR are usually Ap ( S-UL (Ti - Ta) )
combined into one-term (QL), that is,
QL=Qcond+Qconv+QR+QP where the aperture area Ap is used as a reference area for
the useful gain from the collector.
Energy Balance Equation
In steady state, the performance of a flat-plate solar
collector can be described by the useful gain from the mCp S/UL(To - Ta)
collector, Qu, which is defined as the difference between FR = -------- 1- -----------------
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the absorbed solar radiation and the thermal loss or the AcUL S/UL(Ti - Ta)
useful energy output of a collector:
QU =APS-Ac UL (Tpm-Ta) Physically the collector heat removal factor is equivalent to
the effectiveness of a conventional heat exchanger. By
where Ac and Ap are the gross and aperture area of the introducing the collector heat removal factor and the
collector, respectively. The first term is the absorbed solar modified overall heat transfer coefficient into Equation
energy and the second term represents the heat loss from 2.2.4, the actual useful energy gain Qu can be represented
the collector. The solar radiation absorbed by a collector per as
unit area of absorber S can be calculated using the optical Qu = ApFR [S UL (Ti Ta )]
properties of covers and a plate. The thermal energy loss Qu = AcFR [S UL (Ti Ta )]
from the collector to the surroundings can be represented Using Equations, the useful energy gain can be calculated
as the product of a heat transfer coefficient UL times the as a function of the inlet fluid temperature not the mean
difference between the mean absorber plate temperature plate temperature.
Tpm and the ambient temperature Ta. The + superscript Collector Thermal Efficiency
indicates that only positive values of the terms in the The efficiency of solar collector is defined as the
square brackets are to be used. Thus, to produce useful gain ratio of the useful energy gain to the incident solar energy.
greater than zero the absorbed radiation must be greater Efficiency of the solar collector is given by
than the thermal losses. Gross collector area Ac is defined as
the total area occupied by a collector and the aperture Qu mCp(To-Ti)
collector area Ap is the transparent frontal area. = --------- = ---------------
ASHRAE Standard employs the gross area as a reference ItAc ItAc
collector area in the definition of thermal efficiency of the
collector. The useful gain from the collector based on the The efficiency of a solar collector is defined as the ratio of
gross collector area becomes the amount of useful heat collected to the total amount of
Qu = AC FR( Sc -UL (Ti-Ta) ) solar radiation striking the collector surface during
any period of time.
where Sc is the absorbed solar radiation per unit area based
on the gross collector area, defined as = Solar Energy Collected
Sc = S (Ap/Ac ) --------------------------------------------------
Total Solar Striking Collector Surface
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losses from the solar collector to the atmosphere, is d = p + 0.0425N(1- g)
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The total heat loss coefficient is given by the following: used in results. Mass flow rate (m), Overall heat loss
U = Ut +Ub + Ue coefficient(UL) W/m2oC, useful energy gain (Qu) , total heat
(Q) and efficiency () were calculated by using the data
Computation of heat transfer coefficients which are air speed (V), inlet temperature of air (Tin), outlet
The radiative heat transfer coefficient between absorber temperature of air (Tout), environment temperature (Tamb)
plate and glass cover, hrpg is computed using the following and total solar radiation on horizontal surface (Io)
standard relation (Duffie and Beckman, 1991). Collector parameters Value
Apparent sun temperature( Ts ) 4350 K
Emissivity of the absorber plate(p ) 0.92
Emissivity of the covers( c ) 0.88
Thermal conductivity of the absorber plate( Kp) 384 W/mK
(Tp + 273)2 +(Tg+ 273)2 (Tp + 273) +( Tg +273) Thermal conductivity of the insulation, (Ki) 0.05 W/mK
hrpg = ----------------------------------------------------------- specific heat of the air (cp) 1.005 kJ/kg k
----- Density of air () 1.127 kg/m3
1 1 Kinematic Viscosity 16.97 x 10-6m2/sec
---- + -------- - 1 Avg. solar radiation during experiment period 765 W/m2
p g Average ambient temperature during experiment period
35.8(oC)
hrga, the radiative heat transfer coefficient between glass
cover and ambient air is computed from the following Calculated parameters are
relation (Duffie and Beckman, 1991). Efficiency 35%
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UL 6.4(W/m2)
g (Tg+ 273)4 - (Ts+ 273)4 hp-c 3.73(W/m2)
hrga = ---------------------------------------------- hrp-c 7.4(W/m2)
Tg Ta hrc-a 5.51(W/m2)
Qu 1264 (J)
Tc 35.8(oC)
hcga, the convective heat transfer coefficient between glass Tp 85(oC)
cover and ambient air for natural convection is obtained To 61.4(oC)
from standard relation (Holman, 2003):
k
h p-c = Nu ---- Fig. 3 shows the variation of efficiency with flow
L rate for v-corrugated collectors From the figure, it can be
seen that the efficiency of the air collector is strongly
k = 0.0293 W/m C. dependent on the air flow rate. Variation of Solar radiation
L = 25mm=0.025m. and Efficiency with month was shown in Fig 4.
Fig 5 gives the variation of efficiency with different
mass flow rate. Increasing the mass flow rates resulted in
= 45o 1.5- to 3.5-fold increase in collector efficiency. As seen from
the results, the collector efficiency increased with increasing
g TL3 mass flow rate of fluid. The typical variation of different
Ra = -------------- temperatures of solar air heater is given in Fig. 6. All the
v temperatures were varying with radiation intensity. Results
are in close agreement with the study conducted by S.S.
g = 9.81 Krishnananth et., al, where the absorber plate is the hottest
v = 1.88x10-5 m2/sec part in the air heater and it reached 52oC.around noon. The
= 2.69 x10-5 m2/sec glass also reached the maximum temperature with absorber
plate during noon. The exit air temperature closely varied
Results and Discussions: with surface temperature. The exit air temperatures
First of all, raw data collected from measuring instruments reached a maximum value of 46oC around noon. Only after
were processed to be
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8 AM, there was an appreciable rise in all temperatures and its maximum temperature. Ambient temperature varied
after 5 PM all temperatures reached the low value. from 29.8oC to 30.1 oC.
The incident solar radiation is one of the most
important parameters in the collector efficiency. Fig 7
shows that when the radiation is maximum, collector 50
Efficiency (%)
with flow rate 0.035 kg/sec is shown in
Fig 8. The temperatures attain the maximum value at 1:00 35
noon and the absorber plate reaches the maximum of 47oC.
Collector outlet temperature is an important
30
parameter for determining collector performance. Outlet air
temperature was investigated for wide range of flow rates.
The variation of outlet temperature with flow rate is shown
25
0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035 0.040 0.045 0.050
in Fig. 9. The results show that outlet temperature mass flow rate (kg/sec)
decreases continuously with flow rate and remains in the
useful temperature range for drying purposes up to the
flow rate of 0.05 kg/sec. the outlet temperature of the Fig 3: Variation of Efficiency for different mass flow rates
flowing air through the collector decreased with increased
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flow rate but, after a flow rate of about 0.045 kg/s, the rate
of temperature drop was lower and at a flow rate of 0.050
kg/ s, the curve became rather insensiti.he results indicate
Solar insolation 46
that for drying purposes, the designed air flow rate would 650 Efficiency
be in the range of about 0.020 0.045 kg/m2 s. This range of 44
40
efficiency is considered reasonable As temperature of fluid
Efficiency (%)
38
decreases with flow rate, efficiency gets correspondingly 550
increased due to decreased thermal losses to the 36
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1000
0.02 kg/sec 44
42
0.025 kg/sec
0.03 kg/sec 42
0.035 kg/sec 800
40 0.04 kg/sec 40
0.045 kg/sec
0.05 kg/sec
Efficiency (%)
36 36
34
400 34
32
32
200
30
30 Solar radiation
28
9:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 --
Efficiency
0
Time (hrs) 26
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September 2012
60
54
52 55
50 ambient
48
50 glass cover
46
44
hot air
Temperature(oC)
absorber
Temperature (oC)
42
40
45
38 inlet
36 outlet
glass cover 40
34
32 below cover
30 above absorber 35
28 below absorber
26
24 30
22
9:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00
25
Time (hrs)
9:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 --
Time (hrs)
Fig 6 : Variations of different temperatures for on 21st
October 2012
Fig 8 : Variation of temperatures with Time on 30th August
2012 with flow rate 0.035 kg/sec.
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46 900
Efficiency 64 65
44 outlet temperature Ta
Tin 800
62 60
42 Tout
55 It 700
40 60
Temperature (oC)
Efficiency(%)
38 50
58 600
36 45
34 56 500
40
32 54 35 400
30
52 30
28 300
25
26 50
200
0.020 0.025 0.030 0.035 0.040 0.045 0.050
9:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00
mass flow rate (kg/sec)
Time (hrs)
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26 Nomenclature
24 Temp., difference 900 I -Rate of total radiation incident on the absorbers surface
22 solar radiation (Wm2).
850
20 Ac- Collector area (m2).
18 800 Ap -area of the absorber plate
Solar radiation (W/m2)
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collector of King Saud University Engineering Sciences
The collector length, the distance between the (2012) accepted 16 May 2012.
cover and the absorber, the solar insolation rate 9) M.A. Karim and M.N.A. Hawlader, Development
incident on the collectors, the inclination of the of solar air collectors for drying applications ,
collectors, and the emissivity of thermal radiation J.of.Energy Conversion and Management 45 ,
on the bottom plate are found to have negligible 2004, 329344
effects on the efficiencies of the collectors, although 10) Md Azharul Karim and M.N.A. Hawlader,
they may have significant effects on the Performance evaluation of a v-groove solar air
temperatures on the cover, absorber, and bottom collector for drying applications, J.of. Applied
plate, and on the heat transfer rate between various Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 121130.
plates and the fluid. 11) A. Sreekumar, Techno-economic analysis of a
roof-integrated solar air heating system for drying
fruit and vegetables , J.of. Energy Conversion and
Management 51 (2010) 22302238
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank Department of Science and
Technology for their financial support to carry out the
work.
References
1) Varun , R.P. Saini , S.K. Singal, A review on
roughness geometry used in solar air heaters., J.of
. Solar Energy 81 (2007) 13401350.
2) Ahmed M. Qenawy and A. A. Mohamad,
Analysis of high efficiency solar air heater for cold
climates 2nd Canadian Solar Buildings
Conference, Calgary, June 10 14, 2007.
3) Irfan Kurtbas _, Aydn Durmus, Efficiency and
exergy analysis of a new solar air heater, .of
Renewable Energy 29 (2004) 14891501.
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