Transient computational fluid dynamics investigations on thermal performance of solar air heater with hollow vertical fins

Abstract

Evaluation of experimental thermal performance of a single pass solar air dryer is compared with a transient CFD studies is performed. Vertical hollow plates are placed below the absorber plate and compared against the flat solar absorber plate for its performance improvement. Effect of mass-flow rate, the outlet temperature of air is computationally analyzed in comparison with the experimental work, transient boundary conditions for CFD like ambient temperature, solar insolation are taken from the experimental work, and computational results are in good agreement of with experimental results with maximum error percentage of 10%. Thermal efficiency was increased with increase in mass-flow area for without fin configuration, for a specific mass-flow rate thermal efficiency had a good improvement with fin configuration than the without fin configuration.