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Experimental Testing of a Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heater

Received: 17 May 2017     Accepted: 25 May 2017     Published: 18 August 2017
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Abstract

The aim of the study is to improve thermal performance of passive serpentine flat plate solar collectors using striped technique. Striped mechanism was applied on absorber plate so as to diminish thermal fusion in the plate and investigation enhancing practice of energy conversion from the collector units to the working fluid. Study was conducted or carried out using experimental testing. Demand of domestic hot water has mostly been filling with conventional flat plate solar collectors. Conventional solar collectors are relevant for high flow rate that requires high operational costs. In the past, serpentine solar collector was ignored due to large pumping requirements at higher flow rates. However at low flow rate, serpentine collector is more economical and efficient. Therefore, striped absorber plate of the serpentine solar collector in varoius modes were designed by Solid Work and CATIA. The effect of the configuration parameters of striped serpentine solar collector was investigated and good result was obtained. The analysis was done by decoupling the last striped from whole system. So that the result of the second stripe became inlet boundary condition for the last of four segments. For the collector mass flow rate of 0.00285kg/s and solar radiation of 650w/m2, temperature of absorber plate and water at collector exit became 353k and 336.9k respectively.

Published in International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering (Volume 6, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13
Page(s) 61-67
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2017. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Thermal Breaking, Serpentine Solar Collector, Thermosyphone & Experiment

References
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[2] Mohamed Selmi, Mohammed J. Al-Khawaja, Abdulhamid Marafia, “Validation of CFD simulation for flat plate solar energy collector”, Renewable Energy 33, pp. 383–387, 2008.
[3] N. Molero Villar, J. M. Cejudo Lo´pe, F. Domı´nguez Mun˜oz, E. Rodrı´guez Garcı´a, A. Carrillo Andre´s, “Numerical 3-D heat flux simulations on flat plate solar collectors”, Solar Energy 83, pp. 1086–1092, 2009.
[4] P. Sivakumar, W. Christraj, M. Sridharan and N. Jayamalathi, Performance improvement study of solar water heating system, ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vol. 7, No 1, pp 45-49, 2012.
[5] Matrawy, K. K., Farkas, I., Comparison study for three types of solar collector for water heating. Energy Conversion and Management 38, pp. 861–869, 1997.
[6] Dayan Myrna, "High performance in low-flow solar domestic hot water systems”, MSc thesis, Dept. of Mechanical Eng., Wisconsin-Madison Univ., 1997. (Thesis).
[7] Myrna D., Sanford K. & William Beckman, “Analysis of serpentine collectors in low flow systems”, Solar Energy Laboratory University of Wisconsin-Madison 1500 Engineering Drive Madison, WI 53706, 1998.
[8] John A. Duffie & William A. Beckman, Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes, 3rd edition, Wiley-Inter science Publication John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2006.
[9] Abdel-Khalik S. I., “Heat removal factor for a flat-plate solar collector with a serpentine tube”, Journal of Solar Energy, Vol 18, pp 59-64, 1976.
[10] Zhang H.-F. & Lavan Z., “Thermal performance of a serpentine absorber plate”, Journal of Solar Energy, Vol. 34, pp 175-177, 1985.
[11] Chiou, J. P. & Perera, D. G., “Non - Iterative Solution of Heat Transfer Equation of Fluid Flowing through a Serpentine Tube attached to a plate with radiation as a heat source”, American Society of Mechanical Engineers-Heat Transfer Division, Vol 62, pp. 89- 96, ASME, New York, 1986.
[12] Wolfgang Eisenmann, Frank Wiese, Klaus Vajen & Hans Ackermann, “Experimental investigations of serpentine-flow flat-plate collectors”, Philipps-Universität Marburg, D-35032 Marburg, Germany, 2000.
[13] Lund K. O., “General thermal analysis of serpentine-flow flat-plate solar collector absorbers”, Solar Energy Vol. 42, pp 133-142, 1989.
[14] P. W. Ingle, A. A Pawaer, B. D. Deshmukh and K. C. Bhosale, “CFD analysis of solar flat plate collector”, International Journal of Emerging Technology Advanced Engineering, Volume 3, Issue 4, pp 337-42, 2013.
[15] ASHRAE Hand Book, HVAC applications, SI edition Supported by American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers Research, 2011.
[16] IORDANOU GRIGORIS, “Flat-Plate Solar Collectors for Water Heating with Improved Heat Transfer for Application in climatic Conditions of the Mediterranean region,” PhD dissertation, School of Engineering and Computor Scence., Durham Univ., 2009.
[17] VTech Leak Detection Methods, A Comparative Study of Technologies and Techniques Short version, USA, 2005.
[18] Khalifa, A-J. N., “Thermal performance of locally made flat plate solar collectors used as part of a domestic hot water system”. Energy Conversion & Management, vol 40, pp 1825-1833. 1999.
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  • APA Style

    Gutu Birhanu Oliy, Auch Venkata Ramayya. (2017). Experimental Testing of a Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heater. International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering, 6(4), 61-67. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13

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    ACS Style

    Gutu Birhanu Oliy; Auch Venkata Ramayya. Experimental Testing of a Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heater. Int. J. Energy Power Eng. 2017, 6(4), 61-67. doi: 10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13

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    AMA Style

    Gutu Birhanu Oliy, Auch Venkata Ramayya. Experimental Testing of a Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heater. Int J Energy Power Eng. 2017;6(4):61-67. doi: 10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13,
      author = {Gutu Birhanu Oliy and Auch Venkata Ramayya},
      title = {Experimental Testing of a Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heater},
      journal = {International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering},
      volume = {6},
      number = {4},
      pages = {61-67},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijepe.20170604.13},
      abstract = {The aim of the study is to improve thermal performance of passive serpentine flat plate solar collectors using striped technique. Striped mechanism was applied on absorber plate so as to diminish thermal fusion in the plate and investigation enhancing practice of energy conversion from the collector units to the working fluid. Study was conducted or carried out using experimental testing. Demand of domestic hot water has mostly been filling with conventional flat plate solar collectors. Conventional solar collectors are relevant for high flow rate that requires high operational costs. In the past, serpentine solar collector was ignored due to large pumping requirements at higher flow rates. However at low flow rate, serpentine collector is more economical and efficient. Therefore, striped absorber plate of the serpentine solar collector in varoius modes were designed by Solid Work and CATIA. The effect of the configuration parameters of striped serpentine solar collector was investigated and good result was obtained. The analysis was done by decoupling the last striped from whole system. So that the result of the second stripe became inlet boundary condition for the last of four segments. For the collector mass flow rate of 0.00285kg/s and solar radiation of 650w/m2, temperature of absorber plate and water at collector exit became 353k and 336.9k respectively.},
     year = {2017}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Experimental Testing of a Serpentine Flat Plate Solar Water Heater
    AU  - Gutu Birhanu Oliy
    AU  - Auch Venkata Ramayya
    Y1  - 2017/08/18
    PY  - 2017
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13
    T2  - International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
    JF  - International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
    JO  - International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
    SP  - 61
    EP  - 67
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2326-960X
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijepe.20170604.13
    AB  - The aim of the study is to improve thermal performance of passive serpentine flat plate solar collectors using striped technique. Striped mechanism was applied on absorber plate so as to diminish thermal fusion in the plate and investigation enhancing practice of energy conversion from the collector units to the working fluid. Study was conducted or carried out using experimental testing. Demand of domestic hot water has mostly been filling with conventional flat plate solar collectors. Conventional solar collectors are relevant for high flow rate that requires high operational costs. In the past, serpentine solar collector was ignored due to large pumping requirements at higher flow rates. However at low flow rate, serpentine collector is more economical and efficient. Therefore, striped absorber plate of the serpentine solar collector in varoius modes were designed by Solid Work and CATIA. The effect of the configuration parameters of striped serpentine solar collector was investigated and good result was obtained. The analysis was done by decoupling the last striped from whole system. So that the result of the second stripe became inlet boundary condition for the last of four segments. For the collector mass flow rate of 0.00285kg/s and solar radiation of 650w/m2, temperature of absorber plate and water at collector exit became 353k and 336.9k respectively.
    VL  - 6
    IS  - 4
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Rural Energy Engineering Research Team Bako Agricultural Engineering Resarch Center, Oromia Agricultural Research Institute, Oromia, Ethiopia

  • School of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Jimma University, Oromia, Ethiopia

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