Heat transfer enhancement in packed bed solar air heater

Abstract

An experimental investigation has been done on a low porosity packed bed solar air heater. Investigation covers a wide range of geometrical parameters of wire screen matrices, i.e. wire diameter 0.48 mm, pitch 2.3 mm and number of layers from 3-6 and low range of porosity from 0.9614-0.9807 and packing Reynolds number range from 1064-2405. It is seen that heat transfer coefficient and friction factor are strong functions of geometrical parameters of the porous packed bed. A decrease in porosity increases the volumetric heat transfer coefficient.