Simple Analytical Method for Performance of an Absorber Plate in Flat-Plate Solar Collectors for Two-Dimensional Heat Flow

Abstract

In this paper, two-dimensional temperature distributions in the absorber plate of a flat-plate solar collector have been determined by an approximate analytical technique. In case of two-dimensional heat flow in the absorber plate under actual boundary conditions, the determination of temperature field using an exact analytical method might not be possible. Alternatively, this temperature field can be evaluated using numerical methods. In the present study, finite difference method has been employed as a numerical tool. However, it is well known that the numerical calculations increase the computational cost. For the ease of calculations, an approximate analytical model has been proposed in the present study and the accuracy of the present analytical method has been checked with the comparison of results obtained between the present analytical and numerical techniques. It can be demonstrated that there is an excellent agreement between two results and the deviation between these two have never exceeded by 5%. Therefore, the present analytical method might have a significant importance for analyzing the performance of an absorber plate in order to avoid difficulties of the numerical solution.