Investigation of an Offset Finned Solar Air Heater Based on Energy and Exergy Performance

Abstract

This paper represented theoretically investigation of energy and exergy performance of an offset finned solar air heater. Parametric study was done to investigate the effect of variation of offset fin parameters i.e. fins spacing (1 to 5cm) and fins height (1.8 to 5.8cm) at different mass flow rates (0.01388 to 0.0833kg/s) on the energy and exergy efficiency. The results indicated that attaching offset finned below the absorber plate at low mass flow rates can lead to noticeable enhancement of exergy efficiency. The results revealed that the trend of variation of the energy and exergy efficiencies are not the same and the exergy efficiency is the chief criterion for performance evaluation. Decreasing the fins height, reducing the fins spacing are effective at low mass flow rates, but at high mass flow rates the inverse trend is observable, such that exergy efficiency reduces sharply. The efficiencies of offset finned solar collector were compared with conventional flat-plate collectors and longitudinal fins collector.