Improvement of thermal performance of the finned tube flat plate solar water heater

Abstract

The collector is the main component of the solar thermal system. The collector collects the heat of the sun’s energy, and then transfer this heat into a fluid. This paper studies the effect of an absorber tube with a tube finned of a solar flat plate water heater. The investigation of this system is carried using an experimental study. A plat absorber of 1.6 m x 1.1 m size was employed. Here, fins are used as an extended surface inside an absorber tube. Radiation, ambient temperature, mass flow, temperature water inlet, temperature water outlet was collected during the experiment. The performance of the water heater was discussed. The experimental performance of the system solar water heater was focused on measured collector’s outlet hot water temperature and solar irradiance power available during sunny hours. Thermal efficiency is found to be higher for utilized of tube fin.