Heat Pipes in Solar Collectors

Developing a theoretical model to investigate thermal performance of a thin membrane heat-pipe solar collector

“…The results of this investigation were neither conclusive nor optimistic. Since then, numerous studies have been carried out, including theoretical analysis and calculation [10,19,17,11], experimental testing [1,21,20,26,29,8,22], combined investigation involving theoretical analysis and experimental trials [9,12,13,15,16], as well as applications in practice [4,2,5,18]. Most of these studies involved the investigation of the thermal performance of various types of heat-pipe solar collectors by analytical, numerical or experimental methods with the aim of establishing suitable structures or system layouts, as well as optimum operating conditions for high efficiency.…”

Experimental Investigation of Individual Evacuated Tube Heat Pipe Solar Water Heating Systems

“…Heat pipes are being used in solar collectors as the heat absorbing component for their rapid response to solar radiation changes [Bairamov and Toiliev 1982], freeze tolerance [Radhwan et.al 1990], eliminating corrosion problems and thermal diode benefit. They permit the collection of solar energy at low solar radiation levels of 140 W/m 2 vs. 250 W/m 2 for flat plate collectors [Ward and Ward 1979].…”

“…The incorporation of heat pipes with conventional flat plate and evacuated tube solar collectors has been investigated by many workers [Bairamov and Toiliev 1982, Akyurt 1984, Hammad 1995, Chun et.al 1999, Nada et.al 2004, Sivaraman and Mohan 2005, Hussein 1997, Walker et.al 2004, Ng et.al 2000, Praene et.al 2005and Mahdy 2005] However, only a limited number of works has been devoted to the utilization of the evacuated glass tube solar collectors. No works were cited involving a heat pipe within an Owens-Illinois evacuated tube serving as a thermosyphon solar water heating system.…”