Investigation the influence of inclination angle for flat plate solar air collector through experiment and simulation

Abstract

The heat behaviour of a flat plate solar collector (FPSC) has been analyzed experimentally and numerically under natural convection air flow. The thermal energy transferred through the air by heat convection and heat radiation. The data collections for the solar collector includes various of the inclination angles (15°, 30°, 45°, and 60°). The conventional glazed solar collector has a very low efficiency. Hence, the collector is unglazed in this study. It also covered with the insulation on both sides and at the bottom plate to prevent heat loss. The analysis concluded that rising solar radiation causes temperature to rise. Besides that, it is found that the studies conducted simultaneously on the experimental and numerical models on the different inclination angles are still lacking. Hence, the numerical model was simulated through the utilization of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. A comparison between the numerical model and experiment has revealed that the simulation results of FPSC are closer to the experiment result with less than 5% error. Thus, the numerical model that incorporates design parameters can be utilized for forecasting the way FPSC will operate properly. The results concluded that the FPSC with a 5 cm height of air gap has the highest heat output when inclined at 15 degrees.