Thermal Properties of Solar Collector Comprising Oscillating Heat Pipe in a Flat-Plate Structure and Water Heating System in Low-Temperature Conditions

Solar collectors are very important to the photothermal utilization of solar energy in low-temperature conditions. In this paper, a solar collector comprising an oscillating heat pipe in a flat-plate structure is designed and studied experimentally. The thermal properties are studied in detail, and...

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Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 10; p. 2553
Main Authors Gao, Yuhang, Gao, Chao, Xian, Haizhen, Du, Xiaoze
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2018
Subjects
Cloud cover
Cooling
Copper
Efficiency
flat-plate type
Fuel cells
Heat
Heat loss
Heat pipes
Hybrid vehicles
Irradiance
Low temperature
oscillating heat pipe
Plates (structural members)
Radiance
Radiation
Solar collectors
Solar energy
solar energy collector
System effectiveness
Thermal properties
Water heaters
Water heating
water heating system
Beijing China
China
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Summary:Solar collectors are very important to the photothermal utilization of solar energy in low-temperature conditions. In this paper, a solar collector comprising an oscillating heat pipe in a flat-plate structure is designed and studied experimentally. The thermal properties are studied in detail, and we finally obtain the startup temperature and the expression of the instantaneous efficiency with a relative error of 5%. The results show that the impact of inclination angles on the startup properties of the solar collector is significant to the thermal properties. The comparisons of the efficiency of the present design and similar products are also displayed and discussed, showing that an oscillating heat pipe collector in a flat-plate structure overcomes the low efficiency, high startup temperature and bad pressure resistance of conventional solar collectors. In addition, the thermal properties of the water heating system based on the novel collector were also tested, illustrating the differences between the solar irradiance and the water heating system. Some improvements (e.g., shell material and assembly method) were made in this system design process to increase the heat transfer efficiency and solve the corrosion and pressure resistance problems.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en11102553