Performance assessment of a sustainable Solar Air Heater (SAH) by using different profiles of absorber plates

Abstract

The main objective of solar air heater (SAH) is to make use of the solar potential for heating air and this is used for drying, crops, fishes, wet grains during post harvesting, space heating and in greenhouses. SAH is a black body which has less emissivity and high heat absorbing capacity. The air enters into the collector gets heated with addition of solar radiation. The collector is placed at an angle due to which the natural draught occurs. The main advantage of this type of air heater is compactness, maintenance, easy to assemble and dissemble. In this work a SAH is examined with the use of different materials, sizes and shapes (like plane, rugged) of absorber plates with optimum tilt angle for better thermal storage performance and greater efficiency.