Effect of the Number of Nozzles of Swirl Flow Generator Utilized in Flat Plate Solar Collector: An Entropic Analysis

Abstract

The numerical model of the pipes of a flat plate solar collector (FPSC) with several nozzles has been investigated in the present study. Indeed, the effect of the number of nozzles of the swirl generator on the entropic characteristics has been evaluated. The nozzles were applied for improving the performance of FPSC. For evaluating the proposed system based on the entropy concept, the effect of injection angle and mass flow rate has been considered. The selected injection angles were 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°. Also, the total mass flow rates entered from all of the nozzles were 0.2 kg/s, 1 kg/s, and 2 kg/s. The effect of said variables on frictional and thermal entropy generations was analyzed; then, the overall energetic-entropic performance of the system was predicted using several dimensionless parameters including NE, NS, Nu ∗ , and heat transfer improvement (HTI). Moreover, Witte-Shamsundar efficiency ( η W − S ) was applied to pinpoint the efficiency of the system. The highest value of HTI and η W − S was 1.7 and 0.9 that achieved by “single-nozzle; A90-D50-N12.5-M0.2” and “quad-nozzle; A30-D50-N12.5-M2,” respectively.

Thermal Performance of a Dimpled Tube Parabolic Trough Solar Collector (PTSC) with SiO2 Nanofluid

“…They observed that maximum efficiency of 60% was obtained in the flat-plate collector by improving the evaporation rate with the aid of six microcompartments in the collector basin. Cao et al [27] numerically investigated the entropic properties of flat-plate solar collector (FPSC) with the number of swirls generating nozzles. They predicted the overall system performance using N E , N S , Nu, and heat transfer improvement (HTI).…”