Numerical and experimental investigation of the performance of a new circular flat plate collector

Abstract

Flat plate collectors are the most widely used pieces of solar equipment and, as such, must be optimized to maximize performance while cutting costs. The current study investigates a new circular flat plat collector with a surface area of 0.2 m2. On the flat circular collector, the ribs are positioned in four cases. Case A has straight fins without a cut, case B has non-uniform cut straight fins, case C has cut V-shaped straight fins, and case D has uniform cut straight fins. CFD is used to numerically evaluate these cases, the best-performing case will be checked by the Taguchi method and validated experimentally. Water velocity, temperature difference, useful heat, heat transfer coefficient, collector efficiency, and pressure drop are the parameters studied. According to Taguchi's analysis, case A gives the best performance at a heat flux of 1000 W/m2 from the point of view of useful heat. Case A has the best heat transfer performance with the highest pressure drop. Case A has a collector efficiency of up to 62.5% with a uniform heat flow of 800W/m2. With a mass flow rate of 0.02 kg/s m2, the deviation between the experimental and numerical cases is 1.6%.