Thermal and Hydraulic Design of a Solar Collector Field for a Primary School Pool

Abstract

The methodology and results of the thermal and hydraulic design for a solar heating field of an elementary school's semi-olympic pool is presented. Improved flat solar collectors with copper tube and aluminum fins were used. From own experiences, many Mexican solar fields do not operate correctly because of their poor flow balance (irrigation) , may be due to lack of attention given to this aspect. That's why the research of this work focuses on studying the behavior of the pressure drop in a hydraulic arrangement, particularly of this facility, in which all collector batteries are connected in parallel. Previously two solar collectors were sent to a specialized laboratory for certification tests, obtaining the optimum water flow value for maximum thermal efficiency. The results show an optimum range between 4 and 11 L/min. On the other hand, the development of a thermal model based on a temporal energy balance, allowed us to determine that the optimum solar heating area is around 338 m 2 , using 195 flat-coated solar collectors, with copper tube and aluminum fin. For this heating system a water volume/solar collection area relation, called REVA, of 1.45m 3 /m 2 was obtained. Referred to the hydraulic design and using the program EPANET 2.0 it was found that in the proposed arrangement, 192 solar collectors were irrigated with the optimal range and only 2 solar collectors were below the lower range at 3 L/min. NomenclatureA C solar surface collection (m 2 )

Yearly thermal performances of solar heating plants in Denmark – Measured and calculated

“…Furthermore, the different solar collector types, the different designs of the solar collector fields, the different control strategies including the different flow rates and maybe the different uneven flow distributions in the solar collector fields will influence the thermal performance. For instance, (Bava and Furbo, 2016) showed that the flow rate will influence the flow distribution and efficiency of solar collectors and (Rohde and Knoll, 1976), (Dorantes, Garcia, Salazar, Oviedo, Gonzalez, Alanis, Salazar and Martin-Dominguez, 2014) and (Bava and Furbo, 2017) showed that the flow rate influence the flow distribution and thermal performance of a solar collector field. Figure 3.…”

Development and validation of a detailed TRNSYS-Matlab model for large solar collector fields for district heating applications

“…In most of the mentioned studies, the collector field was only a part of the entire system and hence was treated with little detail, usually by a single collector component. Consequently, aspects such as flow distribution across the collector field are not considered, although they may have an impact on the collector field performance (Dorantes et al, 2014). This is especially valid nowadays, when the collector fields have become increasingly larger.…”

A numerical model to evaluate the flow distribution in a large solar collector field

“…Uniform flow distribution is of great importance also for the efficient operation of the entire collector field, but it is often overlooked (Dorantes et al, 2014). Ideally, the layout of a collector array should keep the pipe lengths as short and the flow distribution as uniform as possible.…”