This paper presents a comparative study between the thermal-hydraulic performances of two types of solar air heaters (SAHs) having the same components: i) is a simple pass solar flat plate collector, and ii) is a simple pass curvilinear solar collector. Thus, we carried out studies to compare the thermal efficiencies and hydraulic performances of both SAHs, in order to compare their effective efficiencies. The experimental measures show that, at different air mass flow rates, the highest efficiencies were obtained from the curvilinear SAH and no significant difference between the pressure drops in both SAHs is noticed. In addition, this study has allowed us to show that the curvilinear form is an efficient method to improve the SAH performances, it permits a good temperature distribution in the air flow duct of the collector.
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