Experimental Investigation of Thermal Performance of a Single and Double Pass Solar Air Heater with Arc Like Structures as the Absorber Plate

摘要

This article presents the Performance of single and double passes air heater analyzed experimentally using Arc like structures in the absorber plates to enhance the heat transfer area. Obtained results were compared with flat absorber plates in both single and double pass conditions.For discussion, the arrangements are indicated as Type-I-Single Pass Air Heaters (SPAH) with Arc like structures, Type II-Double pass air heaters (DPAH) with Arc like structures, Type III-Single pass air Heaters with Flat absorbers, Type IV-Double pass air heaters with Flat absorbers. Resultsshow that there is an increase in efficiency with mass flow rate. Highest collector efficiency is obtained as 73.13% for Type II air heater, for the mass flow rate of 0.025 kg/s. The efficiency obtained for Type II is nearly 20% greater than Type I. It is also observed that, highest collectorefficiency for Type I is obtained as 58.52% for the mass flow rate of 0.025 kg/s. Type III and Type IV air heaters produced significantly less efficiency than Type I and II. Pressure drop and friction factor analysis is also conducted on the four types of SAH. Uncertainty analysis of massflow rate is also carried out.