Open AccessDevelopment of a Design Tool for Sizing and Optimizing Thrmosyphon Solar Water Heater Systems: A Case Study for Tripoli-Libya
Author(s) -
Mohammad Abdunnabi,
Dennis L. Loveday,
Jonathan A. Wright
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
al-ṭāqaẗ al-s̆amsiyyaẗ wa-al-tanmiyyaẗ al-mustadāmaẗ/solar energy and sustainable development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2414-6013
pISSN - 2411-9636
DOI - 10.51646/jsesd.v8i1.17
Subject(s) - sizing , solar water heating , intuition , process engineering , engineering , environmental science , civil engineering , marine engineering , solar energy , electrical engineering , art , philosophy , epistemology , visual arts
Thrmosyphon solar water heaters can be considered the most popular solar technology for supplying households with the needed hot water for domestic purposes. However, sizing these systems is mainly based on experience and trial methods, these methods were established more on intuition instead of scientifi approaches. Ths paper is aimed at studying the sizing of thermosyphon systems through the development of a dedicated generic design tool. Th tool can be utilized by manufacturers and engineersto arrive at optimized systems designed according to the operating and weather conditions of certain geographical locations. The design tool is implemented in this study to fid the optimum system design that fis households in Libya (as a case study in this work) and accounts for the weather conditions of Tripoli and a simple, but representative, hot water load pattern. Two diffrent sizes of thermosyphon systems covers hot water load of 180 lit and 240 lit, and two diffrent confiurations with vertical and horizontal tanks are studied and the best fi designs are obtained. Th design tool has shown a great potential, and with further development and validation would be capable of widespread commercial application.