Research of fixed and solar tracking liquid flat-plate solar collector with experimental and mathematical approach

摘要

Experimental set-up with two flat plate solar collectors is installed on a location in Shtip (Republic of Macedonia), latitude 41o 45’ and longitude 22o 12’, one with a fixed surface tilted at 30о towards the South, and the other one equipped with dual-axis rotation system. The study includes development of a 3-D mathematical model of the collectors system based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. udThe main aim is to investigate the effect of the sun tracking system implementation on the collector efficiency. The mathematical modelling is to provide information on conduction, convection and radiation heat transfer, so as to numerically simulate the heat transfer performances and the energy capture capabilities of the fixed and moving collectors in various operating modes. The feasibility of the proposed method was confirmed by experimental verification, showing significant increase of the moving collector efficiency, compared to the immobile collector unit. The comparative analysis demonstrates a good agreement between the experimental and numerically predicted results for different running conditions. ud