Abstract
An indoor standard test procedure is developed to experimentally investigate the steady state energy and exergy performance of single-pass flat plate solar air heater (SPFPSAH), roughened plate dual-pass solar air heater (RPDPSAH), finned plate dual-pass solar air heater (FPDPSAH) and wire mesh dual-pass solar air heater (WMDPSAH) at varied mass flow rates and solar intensities. The analytical solution of the energy balance equations for various elements of the SPFPSAH, RPDPSAH, FPDPSAH and WMDPSAH is determined using a MATLAB 8.1 program and correlated with experimental findings. The analytical and experimental results show that the energy and exergy performance of WMDPSAH is superior to FPDPSAH, RPDPSAH and SPFPSAH. The pressure drop of WMDPSAH is higher than that of FPDPSAH, RPDPSAH and SPFPSAH. From the economic analysis, WMDPSAH is found economically viable within the opted conditions compared with FPDPSAH and RPDPSAH. The analytical and experimental results are in fairly good agreement.
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Abbreviations
- \({A_{{\rm c}}}\) :
-
Area of the collector \({({\rm m}^{2})}\)
- \({A_{{\rm f}}}\) :
-
Total area of the fins \({({\rm m}^{2})}\)
- B :
-
Flow channel width (m)
- \({c_{{\rm p}}}\) :
-
Specific heat of air (J/kg K)
- \({d_{\rm w}}\) :
-
Wire diameter of wire mesh (m)
- \({D_{{\rm h}}}\) :
-
Hydraulic diameter of the flow channel (m)
- e :
-
Artificial roughness height (m)
- E :
-
Efficiency increment
- H :
-
Flow channel height (m)
- h :
-
Heat transfer coefficient \({({\rm W/m}^{2}\;{\rm K})}\)
- \({h_{{\rm b}}}\) :
-
Conductive heat transfer coefficient across the insulation \({({\rm W/m}^{2}\; {\rm K})}\)
- I :
-
Incident solar radiation \({({\rm W/m}^{2})}\)
- k :
-
Thermal conductivity of air (W/m K)
- \({k_{{\rm i}}}\) :
-
Thermal conductivity of insulating material (W/m K)
- \({k_{{\rm s}}}\) :
-
Thermal conductivity of fin (W/m K)
- L :
-
Flow channel length (m)
- \({L_{{\rm f}}}\) :
-
Length of the fin (m)
- m :
-
Mass flow rate of air (kg/s)
- n :
-
Number of wire mesh layer
- \({n_{{\rm f}}}\) :
-
Number of the fins
- p :
-
Artificial roughness pitch (m)
- p t :
-
Pitch of the wire mesh screen (m)
- P :
-
Power consumption increment
- \({P_{\rm wm}}\) :
-
Porosity of packed bed
- Q :
-
Energy output of the solar air heater (W)
- t :
-
Thickness of the fin (m)
- t i :
-
Thickness of the insulation (m)
- T :
-
Average temperature (K)
- V:
-
Velocity of air in the channel (m/s)
- \({W_{{\rm f}}}\) :
-
Height of the fin (m)
- FPDPSAH:
-
Finned plate dual-pass solar air heater
- RPDPSAH:
-
Roughened plate dual-pass solar air heater
- SAH:
-
Solar air heater
- SPFPSAH:
-
Single-pass flat plate solar air heater
- WMDPSAH:
-
Wire mesh dual-pass solar air heater
- \({\alpha}\) :
-
Absorptivity
- \({\tau}\) :
-
Transmissivity
- \({\varepsilon}\) :
-
Emissivity
- \({\mu}\) :
-
Dynamic viscosity of air \({({\rm N \, s/m}^{2})}\)
- \({\rho}\) :
-
Density of air \({({\rm kg/m}^{3})}\)
- \({\eta}\) :
-
Energy efficiency (%)
- \({\eta_{f}}\) :
-
Fin efficiency (%)
- \({\sigma}\) :
-
Stefan–Boltzmann constant \({({\rm W/m}^{2}\, {\rm K}^{4})}\)
- a:
-
Ambient
- ab:
-
Absorber plate
- abro:
-
Absorber plate with roughness
- c:
-
Convection
- c1:
-
Cover-1
- c2:
-
Cover-2
- f:
-
Fluid
- f1:
-
Fluid flow-1
- f2:
-
Fluid flow-2
- i:
-
Inlet
- o:
-
Outlet
- r:
-
Radiation
- wm:
-
Wire mesh
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Velmurugan, P., Kalaivanan, R. Energy and Exergy Analysis of Solar Air Heaters with Varied Geometries. Arab J Sci Eng 40, 1173–1186 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-015-1612-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-015-1612-2