ENGINEERING STUDIES ON ABSORBENT SURFACES TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF SOLAR COLLECTORS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assoc. Prof., Ag. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Ag., Menoufia U., Egypt.

2 Res., Ag. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Ag., Menoufia U., Egypt.

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the thermal performance of four configurations of absorber plates of solar air collectors under three levels of air mass flow rates (0.0199, 0.047 and 0.120kg/s) and fabricate an efficient and cheap solar air collector from recyclable aluminum cans. Solar air collectors were manufactured and tested under prevailing weather conditions of Shebin El-Kom city (30˚.54'N and 31 E), Egypt. Comparisons between the temperature difference of air across the collector and thermal efficiencies of the flat, aluminum cans, and v-corrugated plate solar air collectors were presented. The results revealed that the maximum thermal efficiency was obtained at mass flow rate of 0.047kg/s for an solar air collector with an absorber plate made of single layer of recyclable aluminum cans) type-I), whereas the lowest thermal efficiency was obtained for the solar air collector without cans (flat plate). The thermal efficiency of the solar air collectors depends principally on the solar radiation, surface geometry of the collectors and air mass flow rate.

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References

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