Numerical investigation of influence of the absorber shape on thermal performance of a solar collector

• Published in: Journal of thermal analysis and calorimetry Vol. 147; no. 24; pp. 14697 - 14712
• Main Authors: Fattoum, Raoua, Hidouri, Ammar, El Hadi Attia, Mohammed, Arıcı, Müslüm, Abbassi, Mohamed Ammar, Driss, Zied
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-12-2022; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Absorbers; Air flow; Analysis; Analytical Chemistry; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Fluid flow; Industrial applications; Inorganic Chemistry; Investigations; Mathematical models; Measurement Science and Instrumentation; Physical Chemistry; Polymer Sciences; Reynolds number; Solar collectors; Three dimensional flow; Turbulence; CFD; Absorber shape; Thermal efficiency; Solar air heater
• ISSN: 1388-6150; 1588-2926
• DOI: 10.1007/s10973-022-11744-3

The solar collector has received great interest in many industrial applications. This paper investigates numerically the influence of the absorber shape on the thermal performance of the solar air heat collector. Turbulent 3D air flow is simulated using the turbulence RNG k-epsilon model. The validation of the used model is achieved by comparing the simulated Nusselt numbers to the experimental ones obtained under the same conditions in the case of the simple shape. A good agreement between numerical results and experimental data is obtained. Three other geometric shapes including oval, rectangular, and hexagonal forms of the absorber are also tested. A maximum improvement in the Nusselt number of 36% is obtained using the hexagonal shape of the absorber and a Reynolds number of 12,000. Predicted distributions of temperature, velocity, and pressure are also improved by using the hexagonal shape of the absorber.