Thermal Behaviors in a Solar Air Heater Channel with Arc-Shaped Baffle Turbulators

Abstract

Influences of arc-shaped baffles turbulators (ASB) on thermal behaviors in a solar air heater channel are studied. In the experiment, the ASB with three pitch ratios (P/e) are placed on the absorber plate (bottom channel wall in this case) to generate stronger turbulence intensity in the channel. The distributions of temperature and local Nusselt number contours in the absorber plate fitted with ASB are observed with thermochromic liquid crystal (TLC) sheet. The results reveal that the heat transfer increases with the decrease in P/e due to longitudinal vortex flow effect. The heat transfer from employing the ASB at P/e = 4.0, 6.0 and 8.0 is higher than the smooth channel around 116%, 120% and 127%, respectively. This indicates that the ASB pitch spacing is optimal at 8 times baffle height in the present work.