Experimental Investigation of Double Pass Solar Air Collector for Using in Agricultural Applications

Abstract

In this research, an experimental study has been performed in order to enhance the thermal performance of a double-pass solar air collector by employing extended surfaces. In order to increase the heat transfer area, triangular-shaped fins were mounted on the longitudinal direction of the absorber plate. Four models of the solar air collectors were made of aluminum with different fin configurations. The experiments were carried out at the winter season in the climate of Iraq - Ramadi city with longitude 43.268 and latitude (33.43). The used range of mass flow rate in the experiments was from 0.027 kg/s to 0.037 kg/s. The comparison with previous studies in terms of thermal efficiency showed good agreement where the percentage of error does not exceed 1% between them. The results also provided that the existing of fins was a good technique for enhancing the thermal performance of double-pass solar air collector with a marginal increase in pressure drop. Consequently, it is possible to adopt this kind of solar air collectors for many agricultural applications such as solar dryer.