Thermal and Thermohydraulic Performance of Double Flow Flat Plate and Corrugated Absorber Solar Air Heaters

Som Nath Saha; S. P. Sharma

Authors

Som Nath Saha Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, India
S. P. Sharma Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, India

Keywords:

Solar air heater, double flow, corrugated absorber, thermal efficiency, thermohydraulic efficiency

Abstract

In this work, thermal and thermohydraulic performance of double flow flat plate and corrugated absorber solar air heaters are analytically investigated. Three types of collectors are considered in this study, first one has flat plate absorber (SA-1), second has corrugated absorber (SA-2) and third one has corrugated absorber and bottom plates (SA-3). The aim of the use of the corrugated absorbing plate and bottom plate is to enhance the turbulence and the heat transfer rate inside the air flow channel which help to improve the performance of collector. The performance of these three types of solar air heater are analyzed on the basis of effective parameters such as mass flow rate and insolation. The results show that the corrugated absorber solar air heaters (SA-2 and SA-3) have much higher efficiencies than the flat plate solar air heater (SA-1) although performance of SA-3 collector is superior to that of SA-2 collector. The percentage enhancement in efficiency of SA-3 collector with respect to SA-1 collector is 11.86 % for the mass flow rate of 0.035 kg/s.The results also show that increasing the solar intensity leads to achieve higher air temperature rise and efficiency.