Effect of Absorber Design on Convective Heat Transfer in a Flat Plate Solar Collector: A CFD Modeling

Abstract

In this paper, we made a numerical simulation of convective heat transfer in a rectangular section pipe of a air flat plate solar collector using three forms of the absorber plate namely, simple shape, rectangular-shape, and half circle-shape. The flow is considered laminar and stationary, where the heat exchange between the absorber plate and the fluid takes place in useful area. The computer code in fluid dynamics, the fluent, is applied to integrate the governing equations on each control volume. A detailed description of the fluid flow and heat transfer in the rectangular channel was made. Several simulation were carried out in order to determine the influencing parameters allowing better performances of the collector and ensuring a good homogeneity of the temperature at the exit of the channel. The obtained results showed that the lows mass flow rates of the air increase the average outlet temperature. Also, the use of the second configuration of the absorber (rectangular shape) increases the velocity of the air at the downstream of the channel and promotes more the thermal homogeneity at the outlet of the channel.

Analytical Study of Thermal Performance of a Jet Plate Solar Air Heater With the Longitudinal Fins Under the Cross Flow and Non-Cross Flow Conditions

“…Das et al (2022) made a numerical analysis of a solar air heater with jet impingement and compared between the performance of different jet designs. Flilihi et al (2022) studied the effect of absorber design on convective heat transfer in a flat plate solar collector through a CFD modeling. Salman et al (2022) studied the utilization of jet impingement on dimple shaped protrusion on heated plate to improve the performance of double pass solar heat collector.…”

Performance Analysis of Longitudinal Fin Jet Plate Solar Air Heater Under Cross Flow Condition

“…The main reasons of its improved performance is more elongated streamlines and higher turbulent kinetic energy with increased mass flow rate leading to a wide jet affected area inside the duct. Flilihi et al (2022) presented a CFD modeling using Ansys Fluent software to study the effect of absorber design on convective heat transfer in a flat plate solar collector. Several simulations were carried out to determine the influencing parameters allowing better performances of the collector as well as a good homogeneity of the temperature at the exit of the channel.…”