Robust design of a low cost flat plate collector under uncertain design parameters

Abstract

The high expenses of electrical energy needed for heating water can be significantly decreased by using flat plate collectors. Therefore, the design of flat plate collectors having optimal performance has received a lot of attention in recent research projects. However, due to the existence of uncertainties in material properties, geometry and environmental conditions, it is imperative to incorporate uncertainty analysis into the design optimization to obtain reliable results. In this work, a multi-criteria robust design based on multi-objective optimization of the flat plate collector system is developed. Firstly, a determinist optimization (non-consideration of uncertain design parameters in this optimization strategy) of flat plate collector design is conducted. The obtained results showed that the determinist optimization leads to a flat plate collector design with 30% efficiency sensitivity and 27% total cost sensitivity to design parameters uncertainty. As an alternative, the multi-criteria robust design based on multi-objective optimization is developed. For this goal, a combined multi-objective colonial competitive algorithm and polynomial chaos expansion method is developed and used. This multi-criteria robust optimization considers simultaneously four objectives functions including the flat plate collector efficiency, the flat plate collector total cost, and their sensitivities to uncertain design parameters. It is noted that the multi-criteria robust design based on multi-objective optimization offers a robust flat plate collector with performances sensitivity to design parameters uncertainty less than 4.5%. Furthermore, when compared to the literature results, the performances sensitivities of flat plate collector design, obtained by the multi-criteria robust design based on multi-objective optimization, were reduced until 64%.