Open AccessNumerical Investigation of Thermal Performance for Air Solar Collector with Multi Inlets
Author(s) -
Jalal M. Jalil,
Adel H. Ayaal,
Abdulwahhab A. Hardan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/765/1/012036
Subject(s) - inlet , thermal , computational fluid dynamics , heat transfer , mechanics , environmental science , heat flux , heat transfer fluid , flow (mathematics) , airflow , meteorology , materials science , mechanical engineering , marine engineering , engineering , physics
Over the years, there has been rigorous modification of solar collectors for the thermal needs of the era to be efficiently served. A variety of design innovations have paved their way into the invention of novel ways of securing more solar energy as useful heat. Primarily, this study investigates the effects of multi air inlets on the transfer of heat between air flow and the absorber of flat plate collector. Computational Fluid Dynamics was employed to simulate a flat plate collector with 1, 2 and 3 inlets to evaluate the thermal performance with more than one inlet. The results showed that the 3 inlets case has the highest exit temperature followed by 2 inlets and then 1 inlet. Also higher exit air temperature can be obtained for higher heat flux and slower inlet velocity.