Numerical and Experimental Performance Evaluation of a Polymer Direct Solar Irradiation Collector

Abstract

With the objective of reducing costs and proliferating use, a special Direct Solar Irradiation Collector (DSIC) solar water heater was developed. To produce a commercially feasible product, a full research and development program was conducted that included several generations of prototypes and a range of design criteria such as material selection, manufacturing processes, economics, and materials availability. The result was a Parallel Plate type collector made out of polymers which is designed for temperate weather and low pressure household-use. It is able to achieve similar efficiencies and performance than commercial water heaters while cutting its cost by half. The present study introduces the concept and includes numerical and experimental results made on a scaled prototype. The numerical analysis compares the pressure-drop across 3 collectors. The pressure-drop is better by almost a factor of 4 when comparing the DSIC and a Parallel Tubes type collector. Performance tests were conducted outdoors to measure the temperature and solar irradiation as a function of time. Different ratios between collection area and water volume were tested. Temperature was measured simultaneously at different locations to observe the thermal gradient along the collector and water tank. Maximum temperature of 95°C and max efficiencies on the range of 84-92% were achieved by the DSIC collector.

Investigation of annual thermal performance and techno-economical analyses of direct absorption solar collector by using nanofluids

“…As solutions of improving the thermal performance of DASCs are replace the materials of collector parts to enviroeconomic one or place of water using heat transfer fluids with the high thermal conductivity. In works [2], [3] provided the preference of using polymeric materials to make a direct irradiate solar collectors. Accordingly, polymeric solar collectors showed the same thermal performance with metal based solar collectors, which working temperature reaches up to 95 o C, where thermal efficiency appointed 84-92%.…”