Assessment of the performance for a new design of storage solar collector

Abstract

This research includes a numerical study for a new design of a storage solar collector to confirm its convenience for household use. This novel collector is called the wedge storage collector and can be utilized as storage water reservoirs to substitute the common cubical or cylindrical container commonly used for domestic application. The study includes storage collector derived from cutting a cylinder at two planes, the first plane is a vertical and the other is an inclined plane at 45 o . Fluent software was used to achieve the numerical study. The free convection process in the space of these storage collectors was investigated based on the finite volume method. From the results of CFD program (Fluent), the distributions of the temperature and velocity during the day were obtained. The maximum value of mean storage temperature inside the storage collector (its volume 666 liter) is 18 o C at 4 p.m. during winter (21 December) when the tap water temperature was 7 o C. During summer, the mean storage temperature inside the storage collector reaches 41 o C when the tap water temperature is 25 o C. It is observed that the mean storage temperature of the water inside the collector decreased with increasing the volume of collector, also the results show there is no obvious influence of the barrier on the mean storage temperature of water inside the collector. This storage collector was better than the previous design of collectors because of the high sunlit ratio area to storage volume which is an important significant parameter affecting the performance of this type of storage solar collector.