Experimental investigation and analysis
of new design solar flat plate collector
Under the guidance
of
Mr. Jagadish
Asst. Professor,
Mechanical Dept.
Rahul Sonkar
Isuru Walpora
Rakesh Mazumdar
Abhishek Bharti
Shashi Kumar
12-1-2-071
12-1-2-098
12-1-2-095
12-1-2-079
12-1-2-055
1
Outline
Introduction
Literature Review
Research Gap
Methodology
Work done till now
Work to be done
Introduction
Solar Flat plate Collector (FPC) is a heat exchanger
which consists of metal box with a glass cover on top
and a absorber plate inside. The sides and bottom of
the collector are insulated to minimize heat loss.
Most commonly used FPC is fin and tube type,
A new type of collector consisting of rectangular ducts
has been theorized in 1996.
Theoritically, this type of absorber would yield higher
efficiency due to the overall lower temperature.
The motivation for this project is to test whether this
hypothesis is valid.
This will be accomplished by a CFD Flow and Heat
Transfer study of the above mentioned designs,
followed by experimental analysis.
Literature Review
Title
Flat Plate Collectors
Author
Research Area
Y.R. Sekhar, K.V
Sharma, M.B. Rao
Experimental
determination the top
loss coefficients of a fin
and tube design absorber
under known heat flux
conditions.
M. Rommel, W. Moock
Analyltical study of
rectgular duct based
absorber.
experimented on a
Raj Thundil Karuppa ,
sandwich type collector
Pavan and Reddy Rajeev which is made of GI
sheet
Title
Flat Plate Collectors
Author
Research Area
A. Alvarez , O. Cabeza ,
M.C. Muiz , L.M.
Varela
Comparison
of
the
heating curves of a
sandwich-like serpentine
ducts serpentine ducts,
to those of a fin-tube
type
collector
with
parallel ducts
M.A. Oyinlola, G.S.F.
Shire, R.W. Moss
conducted an experiment
using
fluid
microchannels experimentally
and analytically evaluate
the
heat
transfer
characteristic of this
particular duct geometry
Research Gap
From the previous studies following are the research gaps have
been identified:
The higher efficiency of rectangular ducts of varying heights has
been analytically theorized. However, numerical and experimental
analysis have not been performed.
The conditions for optimal efficiency of a duct based collector of
optimum channel height has not been suggested.
Design goal (of achieving greater efficiency than fin and tube
design) has not been validated experimentally.
Methodology
Literature
Researchreview
Gap
Identification of Input / Output parameters
Experimental Setup
Experimental Analysis
Thermal Analysis
Optimal Analysis
Comparative Analysis
8
CFD ANALYSIS OF RECTANGULAR DUCTS
Step-1: Geometrical modeling
First the geometry of the models were created in a standard
CAD software of wall thickness 0.8mm, width 100mm,length of
1000mm. 10 different model is generated by varying duct
height from 1 to 10 mm
Step-2: Meshing & Named Selections
Initially, a mesh consisting of hexahedral elements was used to
test whether the solution converges with the initial boundary
conditions.
Afterwards, mesh refinement of degree 3 was performed on the
fluid inlet and outlet, as well as the sides of the channel, to obtain
more simulation details. The resulting fluid mesh after refinement
was a structured mesh consisting of triangular prismatic cells
having triangular and quadrilateral faces at the boundaries. In this,
the edges and regions of high temperature gradients are finely
meshed.
Different sections are named according to their use:
Inlet
Outlet
Top surface
Bottom surface
Step 3:
Solution
Problem Setup
The mesh was checked. The analysis type was changed to
pressure based type because the flows in this problem are well
below supersonic levels, and the velocity formulation was
changed to absolute. Time was changed to steady state.
Models
Energy equation was enabled, and viscous model was selected as
laminar model.
The flow in all the test ducts were all considered to be laminar, as
the Reynolds numbers of all the flows are well below the
transition threshold value of 2300.
Table 1: Reynolds Number for duct heights 1-6mm
Materials
Water-liquid as fluid and aluminum as solid was selected from the
fluent database by clicking change/create.
Cell zone conditions
Different parts were assigned as solid or fluid accordingly.
Boundary Conditions
:
Name
Inlet
Top-surface
Bottom-surface
Type
Mass flow rate ,
Fixed inlet
temperature
Mixed thermal
boundary conditions
Convective
Values
Low mass flow:0.000625 kg/s
High mass-flow:0.0010417 kg/s
Convective heat transfer co-efficient
: 3.3W/m2K
Free stream temperature : 305K
Emissivity of the surface : 0.3
Convective heat transfer co-efficient
:0.7W/m2k
Free stream temperature : 305K
Work done till now
Literature Review
Identification of research gaps
Identification of Input and Output parameters.
Preparation of experimental set-up.
17
Work to be done
Conducting the experiments on SFPC by varying the identified
input parameters.
Analyze the experimental data and its Simulation using ANSYS.
Comparative analysis.
18
References
Rommel M., Moock W. (1996). Collector Efficiency Factor F for Absorbers with Rectangular
Fluid Ducts Contacting the Entire Surface. Solar Energy Vol. 60, 199-207, Elsevier Science
Ltd., 1997.
Oyinlola, M.A., Shire, G.S.F., Moss, R.W (2014). Thermal Analysis of a Solar Collector
Absorber Plate with Microchannels. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science Vol. 67, 102109, 2014.
Sekhar, Y.R., Sharma, K.V., Rao, M.B (2009), Evaluation of Heat loss Coefficients in Solar
Flat Plate Collectors. ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences Vol. 4, 2009.
Karuppa, R.T.R, Pavan, P., Reddy, R.D. (2012), Experimental Investigation of a New Solar
Flat Plate Collector. Research Journal of Engineering Sciences Vol. 1, 2012.
Alvarez, A., Cabeza, O., Muniz, M.C., Varela, L.M. (2010), Experimental and Numerical
Investigation of a Flat-Plate Solar Collector. Journal of Energy Vol. 35, 3707-3716, Elsevier
Science Ltd., 2010.
Rojas, D., Beerman, J., Klein, S.A., Reindl, D.T. (2007), Thermal Performance Testing of
Solar Flat Plate Collectors. Solar Energy Vol. 82, 746-757, Elsevier Science Ltd., 2008.
Selmi, M. Mohammed, J. Marafia, A. (2006), Validation of CFD Simulation for Flat Plate Solar
Energy Collector. Renewable Energy Vol. 33, 383-387, Elsevier Science Ltd., 2007.
