EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF TWO SERPENTINE FLAT PLATE SOLAR WATER HEATING SYSTEMS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Lecturer, Agric. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., Suez Canal Univ., 41522 Ismailia, Egypt.

Abstract

The objective of this research work is to investigate the effect of changing working fluid mass flow rates and flow passage diameters on the thermal efficiency in the flat plate solar collector. Two identical flat plate solar collectors were designed, built and installed on the roof of the Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt (latitude of 30.62o, longitude 32.27o and 5m above sea level). The collector is rectangular in shape with surface area 1.5 m2. Aluminum sheet is used as an absorbing plate of 1 mm thickness. The diameter of serpentine copper tube was 6 mm (SC1) and 8 mm (SC2). A clear glass cover of 3 mm thick was placed to cover the solar collector. Insulated storage tank with 120 L was used to store the water after passed through the solar collector. The experiments were carried out at different mass water flow rates of 0.45, 1.0 and 1.75 kg min-1. The obtained results showed the SC2 increased the thermal efficiency by 19.3, 15.3 and 15.1 % above that for the SC1 with flow rate 0.45, 1.0 and 1.7 kg min-1, respectively.

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