Optimization of the Thermal Performance of the Solar Water Heater (SWH) Using Stochastic Technique

Abstract

The efficiency of Solar Water Collector (SWH) is low and in order to increase its thermal performances various optimization techniques were used. In this paper, a stochastic method (Genetic Algorithm (GA)) was adopted to increase the efficiency of the active SWH under various climatic conditions and for a various operation parameters. The optimization model was introducing a lot of objectives in order to evaluate the optimality of the SWH. For the dynamic Reynolds number, solar radiation intensity and ambient temperature, different values of plate emissivity, a different number of the glass cover and velocity of air, the thermal performance was obtained and it is compared with the experimental results of [16]. It is established by the studies carried out based upon this algorithm that the maximum thermal efficiency comes out to be 75,28 %. The application of our results was applied in such application as heating anaerobic digester by SWH [17]. The goal is to support decision makers in the definition of the optimal thermal performance and of the optimal collector flat area in order to give a good compromise between the collector efficiency and the output water temperature in the country.