ARTICLE IN PRESS

Renewable Energy 33 (2008) 383–387

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Validation of CFD simulation for flat plate solar energy collector

Mohamed Selmi, Mohammed J. Al-Khawaja, Abdulhamid Marafia
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Qatar, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, State of Qatar, Qatar
Received 30 December 2006; accepted 3 February 2007
Available online 26 April 2007

Abstract

The problem of flat plate solar energy collector with water flow is simulated and analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
software. The considered case includes the CFD modeling of solar irradiation and the modes of mixed convection and radiation heat
transfer between tube surface, glass cover, side walls, and insulating base of the collector as well as the mixed convective heat transfer in
the circulating water inside the tube and conduction between the base and tube material. The collector performance, after obtaining 3-D
temperature distribution over the volume of the body of the collector, was studied with and without circulating water flow. An
experimental model was built and experiments were performed to validate the CFD model. The outlet temperature of water is compared
with experimental results and there is a good agreement.
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Keywords: Solar energy; Solar radiation; Solar collector; CFD simulation

1. Introduction
The solar energy collection as a renewable energy topic
has been the primary interests of many engineers and
researchers for the last two centuries due to its wide
applications such as domestic water heating systems.
Today, solar water heating systems are being used for
single family houses, apartment buildings, schools, car
washes, hospitals, restaurants, agricultural farms and
different industries. Solar water heating can reduce
domestic water heating costs by as much as 70%. Owners
of these buildings have found that solar water heating
systems are cost-effective in meeting their hot water needs
all over the year. A more intensive attention was given to
this topic from 1970s of the last century, particularly, when
the worldwide crisis of 1973 has taken place. Since then, the
efficiency of solar heating systems and collectors has
improved. The efficiencies can be attributed to the use of
low iron, tempered glass for glazing (low-iron glass allows
the transmission of more solar energy than conventional
glass), improved insulation, and the development of
durable selective coatings. Thus due to its importance, a
Corresponding author. Tel.: +974 4852109; fax: +974 4670421.
E-mail address: khawaja@qu.edu.qa (M.J. Al-Khawaja).
flat plate solar collector with and without cover glass was
analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) soft-
ware and simulated without water flow in Refs. [1,2]. Here,
the water flow is added and the problem is examined both
computationally using CFD software as well as experi-
mentally and the results are compared to each other for
validation purposes. The CFD package is from Computa-
tional Fluid Dynamics Research Corporation (CFDRC)
and has been successfully used to simulate water currents
and heat transfer inside a water-intake lagoon along a
coastal zone near a power plant in Doha, Qatar by Raouf
and Selmi [3]. The software proved to be powerful and
flexible in modeling a wide range of practical problems.
More on the CFDRC package is found in Ref. [4]. The
CFD analysis of the flow and heat transfer in flat plate
solar collectors is computationally quite difficult and the
number of research works on this subject is quite low. We
refer the reader to the paper by Morrision et al. [5] for
further details.
2. Experimental model
A simple model for the solar collector was built (See
Fig. 1), which is used for implementing the required
experiment, that can be helpful in gaining real outputs that

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doi:10.1016/j.renene.2007.02.003
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384 M. Selmi et al. / Renewable Energy 33 (2008) 383–387
Nomenclature
h heat transfer coefficient, W/m2 1C
n number of iterations
p pressure, N/m2
q solar heat flux, W/m2
R residuals
T temperature, 1C and K
Tin water inlet temperature, 1C and K
are compared to those simulated by the CFD package
described later in this work. Due to the high insulation
efficiency and easy forming, the housing frame was made of
wood. The project model consists of a wooden box of 1.5 m
long; 166 mm wide and 70 mm high, covered with a
transparent glass. The box contains an aluminum plate
used as an absorber, fixed to it from the top a copper pipe
of 12-in diameter, and a polyurethane insulation from the
bottom. Both plate and pipe are fixed at a certain level
inside the wooden box. The inner walls of the box,
absorber plate, and pipe are covered by black mate paint,
while the outside box is painted with white color. The pipe
extends slightly on both sides outside the housing frame, in
order to connect the water inlet and outlet fittings easily.
A number of thermocouples are attached to the absorber
plate, pipe at some selected points, and outside of the solar
collector, to measure the collector inside, ambient, water
inlet and outlet temperatures. The model pipe is connected
to water source through manual control valve at one end,
and a drain hose at the other. The water flow is controlled
by means of a manual control valve, and a calibrated pot.
The project model is oriented to face the sun rays normally,
and tilted from time to time to keep tracing the sun
position for most of the experiment time, thus the
maximum energy can be gathered.
There are two types of experiments which are imple-
mented by the built up project model: The first experiment
is performed by still water, i.e. no water flow, and the
second is performed by providing a controlled flow of
water, while all other parameters are kept the same.
The following measurements are required: (1) water inlet
temperature, (2) water outlet temperature, (3) absorber
Fig. 1. Model geometry.
Tout, exp experimental water outlet temperature, 1C
and K
Tout, sim simulation water outlet temperature, 1C and K
u velocity component in x-direction, m/s
v velocity component in y-direction, m/s
w velocity component in z-direction, m/s
Greek letters
r fluid density, kg/m3
plate temperature, (4) pipe temperature, (5) ambient
temperature, (6) solar radiation intensity, and (7) water
flow rate. Measurements starts, upon complete set up of all
components and steady-state conditions are achieved. The
readings are automatically monitored and plotted, by
means of a set of measuring devices connected to the
absorber plate and pipe, through the thermocouples.
3. CFD simulation
The CFD simulations are done by the CFD package
from the CFDRC. To gain simulated results using CFD
software, a simulation procedure has to be followed. The
procedure requires setting the boundary and volume
conditions of the simulated module. Assuming that the
collector is a simple flat plate solar collector, boundaries
should have both convection and radiation heat transfer
mechanisms, except for the face and bottom surfaces.
Aluminum plate is set to have both emissivity and
absorptivity of 1, since it is painted with black mate paint.
In addition, aluminum plate has a density of 2770 kg/m3
and conductivity of 177 W/1C m. The copper pipe has the
same radiation characteristics to be an ideal emissive and
absorptive surface; it has a density of 8800 kg/m3 and
conductivity of 401 W/1C m. All these properties, beside
others for other materials are given in Table 1.
The procedure starts by drawing the module first, in
accordance to the proposed geometries (see Fig. 2). This
stage is done with the CFDRC geometric modeling
module, CFD-Geom, where module volumes, boundaries,
interfaces, and grids are created. The combination of these
geometries forms the module body; but without the status
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M. Selmi et al. / Renewable Energy 33 (2008) 383–387 385

Table 1
Volume condition setting for properties of blocks

Air block Water block Al plate Cu pipe Insulation block

Density (kg/m3) See Eq. (1) See Eq. (2) 2770 8800 72
Specific heat (J/kg 1C) 1007 4230 875 420 1
Thermal conductivity (W/m 1C) 0.0263 0.569 177 401 0.039
Transmissivity 1 — 0 0 0
Emissivity — — 1 1 —

Fig. 2. Drawn module in CFD-Geom.

Fig. 3. Measured total solar radiation on 7 December 2004, in Doha city.

definition of boundaries and volumes. The next stage is
converting the bone geometries to a graphical user-inter-
face module which can be used in the CFDRC solving is used for air as
module, CFD-ACE.
rair ¼ 8:147  0:0682 þ 2:688  104 T 2  5:387  107 T 3
A complete simulation process is performed by using the
experimental results of 7 December 2004 (see Fig. 3 for þ 5:299  1010 T 4  2:0282  1013 T 5 ð1Þ
total solar radiation), to end up with a comparison chart
and a transmissivity of unity is set to be the block radiation
between the experimental and simulated results. This
property as the air is assumed to be transparent to
simulation is to be modeled in a manner that it will have
radiation coming from the sun rays and hitting the cover
the same initial conditions and parameters as the experi-
plate or bouncing off the cover plate, and exchanging
ments. Furthermore, the model dimensions are taken to be
radiative energy with the environment or the neighboring
exactly the same as those of experimental model. The
walls enclosing the air block. In addition, the air specific
simulation modeling can be described starting from
heat and thermal conductivity are set to be 1007 J/kg 1C
selecting the problem type as flow, heat transfer, and
and 0.0263 W/m 1C, respectively. The same was done for
radiation. The next step in the simulation modeling process
the aluminum plate, copper pipe, insulation, and water
is to set up the boundaries, volume conditions, and
blocks, but with different properties and conditions. Again,
properties; this can be done by selecting the boundary or
all these properties are shown in Table 1. The water density
volume which will cause a setting window to appear on the
is estimated by the function
screen that has the setting cells of each property or
condition. All boundaries except the top glass, face, and rwater ¼ 197:105 þ 7:14299T  0:0200628T 2
bottom of the model have an emissivity of unity as one of
þ 1:711949787  105 T 3 . ð2Þ
the radiation options. Also, they have both convection and
radiation heat transfer with the ambient temperature For the module side walls and bottom walls, the
equals to the corresponding experimental one. conditions are considered to be without heat transfer and
The volume blocks can also be set up by selecting the radiation effects, so the emissivity of the boundaries is set
intended block in the model. The air block can be selected to be zero and these walls are considered adiabatic. The
and its properties are set up or entered into the solving cover glass is also exchanging energy by convection with
module; a varied density which is a function of temperature the outside environment. Finally, for the inlet and outlet
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386 M. Selmi et al. / Renewable Energy 33 (2008) 383–387
walls, the average speed of water inside the tube has been
set to a magnitude of 0.0170484 m/s.
The CFDRC solution module CFD-ACE solves the
equations of fluid flow, heat transfer, and radiation
iteratively starting from zero solution or previous one
after inserting the experimental parameters in it with the
aid of a graphical user interface. The parameters are
managed through the boundary and volume conditions,
Fig. 4. Residuals, R, versus number of iterations, n.
Fig. 5. Temperature distribution (in K) for zero-flow rate simulation at
11:45 AM of 7 December 2004.
Fig. 6. Temperature distribution simulation (in K) at the collector outlet cross section for 1.36 g/s mass flow rate at 11:45 AM of 7 December 2004.
which represent the atmosphere properties, boundary
conditions, the properties of collector body material, and
the fluids involved in the process. From one iteration to the
next, the results in terms of temperature, velocity, pressure
at the grid points change and the difference of the values
between the current solution and previous one are called
residuals. The residuals are shown as curves of residual
magnitude versus number of iterations (see Fig. 4). When
the results are converged, e.g., the residual magnitudes
become small; the simulated results such as temperature,
pressure, flow rate, heat transfer rates and so on can be
visualized or calculated by the CFDRC viewing module,
CFD-View.
After introducing the experimental results, at a certain
time (11:45 AM), and above properties into the solving
module CFD-ACE software, and achieving the conversion
of the steady-state solutions, then for each case the results
are analyzed and outlet water temperatures are plotted and
compared to the experimental ones for zero-flow rate and
varied flow rate. The first module simulation was for the
collector with zero-flow rate. The module initial conditions
were applied similarly as the actual experimental ones. As it
is shown in Fig. 5, the maximum registered temperature
was for the absorber plate, 370 K, and the heated water
temperature inside the heat-carrying pipe is almost 361 K.
The next module simulation is for a random but
reasonable flow rate. This simulation has the same initial
conditions of the zero-flow rate module, except that it has a
flow rate of water equal to 1.361573 g/s. The maximum
temperature is registered for the absorber plate, which is
345 K (see Fig. 6), and it is less than that for zero-flow rate
Fig. 7. Temperature distribution simulation (in K) of the collector inlet
cross section for 1.36 g/s mass flow rate at 9:55 AM of 7 December 2004.
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M. Selmi et al. / Renewable Energy 33 (2008) 383–387
Fig. 8. Comparison between experimental and simulated outlet water
temperatures. Also inlet temperature is shown.
module. This is due to the effect of the heat transfer while
water is flowing inside the pipe. The registered water
temperature at the outlet is 327.38 K (see Fig. 6), which is
less than the water temperature in the previous simulation.
As an interesting result, an inlet temperature distribution
simulation of the collector cross section is shown in Fig. 7
at 9:55 AM. The water inlet temperature is reported to be
309.6 K which is much lower than the absorber plate
temperature, 350 K. This assures that our built-up solar
collector is a fairly effective model.
4. Comparison of results
In order to draw up a conclusion, optimize a perfor-
mance, and recommend a decision in regards of the project
model; a comparison between the experimental and
simulated results have to be done. To accomplish that,
the solar radiation flux for the simulation module is varied,
while keeping other parameters fixed, such as geometries,
to match the experimental readings. A comparison chart is
plotted to indicate the experimental and simulated tem-
peratures versus time. As shown in Fig. 8, curves are
plotted to indicate the inlet and experimental and
387
simulated outlet temperatures versus time. It seems the
temperature difference between the water inlet and outlet is
almost 9 1C over all times. Also, the simulated temperature
curve has the same behavior as that experimental one and
they are close to each other. In addition, it shows that the
experiment has numerous disturbances, which affect the
behavior of the experimental temperature curves. These
disturbances or inefficiencies could be associated with the
experimental measurements, as the collector is a hand
made model and it could have obvious imperfectness
issues, such as leakage, material, insulation, measuring
aids, etc.
5. Conclusion
There is a good agreement between the experimental and
simulated results for outlet water temperatures. It was
found that the temperature is lower in the case for water
flow than that one without flow due to the forced
convection heat transfer. Although there are some small
discrepancies due to some experimental imperfectness
matters, we still have a good confidence in the CFD
simulation program that can be used in the future for more
complex solar collector problem.
References
[1] Selmi M, Marafi A, Al-Khawaja M. Performance prediction of a flat
plate solar collector using CFD software. In: Proceedings of
IMEC2004 international mechanical engineering conference, Kuwait,
December 5–8, 2004.
[2] Selmi M, Marafi A, Al-Khawaja M. CFD simulation of fluid flow and
heat transfer in a flat plate solar collector. In: Proceedings of the 2004
world renewable energy congress, Boulder, CO, August 28–September
3, 2004.
[3] Raouf MIN, Selmi M. Modeling of temperature variations and water
currents for coastal zones near power generations and water
desalination plants. J Mar Environ Eng 2001;6:175–93.
[4] CFD-ACE(U) users manual, version 6.4. Huntsville, AL, USA: CFD
Research Corporation; 2000.
[5] Morrision GL, Behnia M, Cook M, Groenhout NK, Mills DR.
Optimal design of advanced solar water heaters. In: Proceedings of the
sixth Australasian natural convection workshop, Murdoch University,
1999.