Nusselt Number for the Natural Convection and Surface Thermal Radiation in Solar Collectors

Abstract

In this paper, a numerical investigation of the two modes of heat transfer, natural convection and surface thermal radiation, in a tilted slender cavity such a collector is presented. The 2-D conservation of mass, momentum and energy are coupled with a radiative model through the boundaries and solved by the finite volume method. The studied parameters are: aspect ratios (8≤A≤16), inclination angles (15°≤λ≤35°) and Rayleigh numbers (104≤Ra≤106). The results indicated that the radiative surface radiation coupled with the natural convection modifies the flow patterns and the average heat transfer in the slender cavity between the absorber plate and the glass in the collector. The convective heat transfer coefficient and the radiative heat transfer coefficient as a function of the aspect ratio and the inclination angles are shown. It was found that the radiative heat transfer contributes more than 40% of the total heat transfer. A comparison between the present Nusselt numbers against the ones used for the design of solar collectors reported in the literature is presented.