Numerical analysis of heat transfer rate from absorber of a flat-plate type solar collector to the tube

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series Vol. 1116; no. 3; pp. 32027 - 32033
• Main Authors: Peranginangin, S E, Sihombing, H V, Ambarita, H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.12.2018
• Subjects: Absorbers; Aerodynamics; Computational fluid dynamics; Flat plates; Flow characteristics; Fluid flow; Heat loss; Heat transfer; Numerical analysis; Thermodynamic efficiency; Two dimensional models
• ISSN: 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1116/3/032027

Flat plate type solar collector is known as the simplest solar collector. However, its thermal efficiency is very low in comparison with other type of solar collector such as evacuated tube. The heat transfer mechanism in the flat plate type solar collector should be elaborated to improve thermal efficiency of a flat plate type solar collector. In this work, commercial code computational fluid dynamics is employed to explore heat transfer rate from the collector plate to the collector tube. The objectives are to explore the fluid flow characteristics in the solar collector and to estimate the useful heat transfer rate. The solar collector is modelled as a two-dimensional computational domain. The conservation mass, momentum equations and energy equations are developed and solved iteratively. Temperature and pressure distributions are plotted and velocity vector is presented. The results reveal that the heat transfer rate from the absorber plate is 28.955 Watt. The transfer rate from the air to the pipe is 24.06 Watt. On the other hand, heat loss to the atmosphere is 4.92 Watt.