Design, construc tion, and testing of the thermal perfor mance of a flat solar collector for domestic water heating are described. The absorbing plate is built from readily avail able mate rials: two sheets of galva nized steel, one of the chan nelled type, the other one flat, which are joined by elec tric welding. The absorber is connected to a 198-L thermotank, insu lated with poly ure thane foam. In terms of receiving surface, the proto type tested here has an area of 1.35 m 2 , about 20% smaller than compa rable copper-tube-based collec tors offered in the market. Temper a ture measure ments conducted over a 30-day period gave values which were a few degrees lower than the theo ret i cally calcu lated water temper a tures. Momen tary thermal effi ciency values between 35% and 77% were observed. The water temper a ture achieved in the tank at the end of the day aver ages 65ºC in winter weather condi tions in the central Mexican high land. This design of solar water heater is well suited to Mexican conditions, as it makes use of the high local inten sity of the solar radi a tion, and as the channel shape of the ducts mini mizes bursting during the rare occur rences of freezing temper a tures in the region; it also has the advan tage of being manufacturable at low cost from simple mate rials.
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