Solar Thermal Collector Education using Polysun Simulations Software

Abstract

There are a variety of solar thermal collectors available in the market today. These collectors are typically manufactured in diverse countries and have different performance characteristics. For homeowners and commercial solar solution providers, it is important to know how these collectors will perform to ensure maximum return on investment. Therefore, engineers and technicians need to be trained into how different collectors will perform in different locations. In this article, we demonstrate how a Swiss simulations software package called Polysun can be used to accurately determine the performance of a particular system under real operating conditions. To demonstrate the accuracy of the simulations tool, we show performance comparisons with experimental results for different types of flat plate and evacuated tube solar collectors. We also show examples of exercises that can be implemented in an undergraduate course in solar thermal systems. According to our investigations, the thermal performance predicted by Polysun was in close agreement with our experimental measurements. The outcomes of our investigations can help educators make informed decisions regarding teaching solar thermal systems to undergraduates using state-of-the art simulation and visualization tools.

Design and Development of a Conceptual Solar Energy Laboratory for District Heating Applications

“…According to Witzig and Kunath [65], this Switzerland-origin simulations software package is comparatively user-friendly, with a vast database of system components. Abdel-Aty et al [66] investigated the usability and accuracy of Polysun and reported that it can be used as an effective tool in educational courses on solar thermal energy systems using diverse simulation scenarios and results visualization. Azhar-Kareem et al [67] investigated the variation of tilt angle (0 • to 90 • ) on the performance of a solar collector using Polysun and reported that the optimum value is around 40 • for the selected location.…”