A Detailed Investigation of the Walls Shading Effect on the Performance of Solar Ponds

摘要

In this article, a general modification on the existing heat storage modeling methods of solar ponds is presented. For this purpose, the walls shading effects have been thoroughly investigated. Four common structural types of the solar pond are studied and proper relations have been derived for them. Considering all the effective parameters on the walls shading status, precise relations for calculation of the sunny area at any desired time and location were presented. To compare different configurations, all the four types are studied in two design sets; ponds with the same top surface area of 12.56 m(2), and ponds with the same total volume of 18 m(3). It was indicated that the derived formulas can reduce the pond temperature calculation uncertainty from 8% (in the case of neglecting the shading effects) to less than 3%. Also, it was concluded that in the same total volume, the ponds with sloped walls show a better thermal performance. (c) 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 38:e13014, 2019