An Innovative solar water collector using heat pipe with inner rings

Abstract

The performance of a new-design flat plate solar water collector was studied in the current work. The influences of the inner rings in the absorber surface heat pipe, on the performance of a new-design flat plate solar water collector were studied. Fluid flow and heat transfer in the collector panel were numerically simulated using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. The results of the flow distribution along the absorber surface of the heating pipe showed that; in the case of heat pipe without inner rings, the water outlet temperature from the heat pipe reached to 326.8 K. While; in the case of using the inner rings, at an axial distance of 5 cm, the water outlet temperature was increased to 338.8 K, for the same simulation conditions. The efficiency of the solar collector without using the inner rings was 60 %, while recording 82.2 % when using the inner rings.