Numerical Simulation on Thermal Performance of the Sinusoidal-Corrugated Solar Air Collector

Abstract

Solar air collector is a heating device of using air as heat medium, and can be widely applied to solar heating, ventilating, dehumidifying and other fields. However, these devices also set low efficiency and large heat loss. How to further improve the thermal efficiency is always the goal pursued by researches. This article from the change of the absorb plate shape to begin, put forward sinusoidal-corrugated solar air collector, and the thermal performance of sinusoidal-corrugated solar air collectors was studied by numerical simulation with using CFD software, and conclusions shows that the thermal efficiency of parallel model is higher than that of vertical model by comparative analysis. Type S, type U and type X were studied by numerical simulation. Results show that type X is the best of three types.

A Study on the Performances of Solar Air Collectors Having a Hemispherical Dimple on the Absorber Plate

“…Therefore, the Boussinesq hypothesis is adopted. Pressure interpolation scheme is second order, the discretization format for the convection term is second-order upwind, while the discretization format for the diffusion term is first-order upwind, using the Simple algorithm [29] and energy equation residual value is decreased to 1 Â 10 −6 and the rest of the residual value is decreased to 1 Â 10 −5 , and the averaged Nusselt numbers of the absorber plate surface is unchanged with iteration. Due to the 45°angle between the placement of the collector and the water level, the influence of buoyancy should be taken into account when calculating.…”