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 and their axial distance, 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; for 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. Also, the maximum calculated efficiency of the solar collector for the case without using the inner rings was 60 %, while this value recorded 82.2 % for that case of using the inner rings. The current research work was compared against a previous experimental work running at the same conditions. The comparisons showed a considerable agreement between the simulated and the experimental results.