Thermal Performance Factor of Impinging Jet‐Angled Corrugated Solar Air Heaters

Abstract

Solar energy is a clean and sustainable source of power generation. There are various industrial and domestic applications of Solar Air Heaters (SAHs), but their low thermal efficiency poses a challenge. To improve thermal efficiency, a novel‐angled corrugated jet‐impinging channel has been proposed for the absorbing plate of SAHs. A numerical study has been performed for four different arrangements of jets, i.e., single circular, single square, 2 × 2 square, and 3 × 3 square jet array with four channels, i.e., 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90° corrugated over the Reynolds number range of 1600–2700 for the jet to target plate range of 4.9–15. It is observed that multiple jets impinging increases the heat transfer significantly. The optimization has been performed by instigating the parametric study. Flow and thermal profiles are studied. The 45° corrugated target plate with 3 × 3 multiple jet impingement, 4.9 jet‐to‐target plate distance, and 2700 Reynolds number is chosen to have the best thermal efficiency. A Thermal Performance Factor of around 8 was achieved as compared to the base case.