The purpose of this work is to present a simple methodology which enables to size a thermosyphon system without always having to resort to a computational simulation. As a result of many system simulations using the TRNSYS software, whereby several project and equipment parameters were varied, a group of expressions were obtained which allow the determination of the system thermal daily efficiency (monthly average). The developed correlation includes geometric and thermal aspects related to the collector, the storage tank and the connecting pipes, as well as operational data such as thermal load, solar radiation and room temperature. This model is able to optimize several variables that comprise thermosyphon solar water-heating systems for the requirements of particular applications. The resulting correlation shows that the efficiency is a linear function of meteorological conditions, collector quality and parameters related to storage tank volume, volume load (consumption profile) and collector area. The correlation is very useful since it is a simple, fast alternative for the calculation of system efficiency without depending on experimental determination or numerical simulation results. The determination and sizing of the collector area and the volume storage tank that satisfy the required thermal load can be appropriately performed in a simple and fast way by using the proposed correlation.
Research on the design and operation of solar stills is relatively advanced, but many works have focused only on the description of the individual behavior and operation of experimental apparatus that can be operated under specific experimental or natural conditions. In any case, optimization of the systems requires the correlation of several parameters by means of mathematical modeling, which can be relatively complex. In this work, appropriate global normalization of governing mathematical equations employing dimensionless numbers has been successfully applied for the versatile operation of solar stills. In this novel approach, optimized conditions to design efficient solar stills are presented and discussed. The results also indicated that the generalized dimensionless model could be able of predicting the still performance. The reasons and processes behind the changing trends of the results depend on the simple analysis of the corresponding nondimensional number.
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