Abstract:
Interest in various renewable energy technologies has increased due to factors such as
rising costs for conventional fuels, rising energy demand, concerns about climate change,
and pollutants produced by burning fossil fuels. For various industries, air-conditioning
has a substantial energy cost. Both residential and commercial water and air heating have
been accomplished with the help of renewable energy. In this project, the design
modification and performance study of a solar water collector, which uses thermal energy from
solar radiation to heat water are presented. Design modification has been done with the
collector. A double-glazing cover is placed at the top to reduce the heat loss. A two flank reflectors
on both side occupying an area of 8.4 m² have been integrated to capture more radiation
reflected to collector with the aim to improve system performance.
The amount of solar energy absorbed by the absorber, the amount of heat transferred to the
heat transfer fluid (HTF), and the length of fluid residence time in the collectorall affect a
flat plate solar water collector's (FPSWC) thermal performance. This real- time
experimental study compares the modified serpentine channeled FPSWC's thermal
efficiency to that of a traditional collector without reflectors. The project is a modification of
the previously fabricated serpentine tube solar water collector.
After the design and modification, the serpentine tube solar water collector was tested to
determine its performance. The setup exhibits a notable improvement in its thermal
performance after more components were added. It shows the temperature rise of 23˚C,
which reach a new maximum water temperature of 80 ˚C from 57 ˚C, which was the
previous setup's temperature. Additionally, the thermal efficiency has been increased to
41% for the new setup. It is evident the design modification has improved the performance
of a traditional serpentine tube solar water collector.
Description:
Supervised by
Prof. Dr. Md. Rezwanul Karim,
Department of Production and Mechanical Engineering(MPE),
Islamic University of Technology (IUT)
Board Bazar, Gazipur-1704, Bangladesh
