Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of the ISME

Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of the ISME

Analysis of an Efficient Circular Solar Air Heater

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Mohammad Omidpanah 1
Seyed Abdolreza Gandjalikhan Nassab 2
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Skills (NUS), Tehran, Iran
2 Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, School of Engineering, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
10.30506/jmee.2024.2039375.1357
Abstract
The main contribution of this study is to present a circular solar air heater with two air passes for higher performance compared to conventional plane solar collectors. The flow of inlet cold air in a radial direction leads to an effective convective heat transfer with a thin boundary layer over a large surface area. Also, due to the shape of the solar collector, it occupies less space than the rectangular types. For simulation via the COMSOL Multi-physic software, the 2-D asymmetric turbulent airflow equations are solved by the finite element method using the turbulence model and the conduction equation is employed for temperature computations inside the solid elements. From the obtained results, up to 85% thermal efficiency is seen for the deigned collector at 0.06 kg/s air mass flow rate. The obtained efficiency shows about 100% improvement compared with the performance of the smooth duct conventional solar air heater. The numerical findings can be considered as a good reference to find an alternative for efficient solar collectors.
Keywords
Circular solar air heater
Asymmetric
Efficiency
CFD

Subjects

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Iranian Journal of Mechanical Engineering Transactions of the ISME
Volume 25, Issue 2 - Serial Number 43
September 2024
Pages 78-92