LAPSE:2023.35301
Published Article
LAPSE:2023.35301
Thermal Performance Evaluation for Two Designs of Flat-Plate Solar Air Heater: An Experimental and CFD Investigations
April 28, 2023
The main objective of this research was to create two different configurations of a flat-plate solar air heater, namely, Conventional-Case A and Modified-Case B, and develop a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model using ANSYS R15.0. The purpose of the CFD model was to simulate the heat transfer behavior of the proposed solar air heaters under unsteady conditions. The RNG k-ε turbulence model was employed for this CFD study. The experiments were conducted on sunny days, under the same conditions as the Egyptian climate. The results of the experiments show that the simulated CFD model and the measured outlet airflow temperatures, relative humidity, and velocities of the two tested solar air heaters were compared. The developed model made very satisfactory predictions. Moreover, the deviations between the average CFD outlet air temperatures and the experimental results were 7% and 7.8% for Case B and Case A, respectively. The CFD-simulated average relative humidity was reduced by 31.6% when using Case B compared with Case A, and it was reduced by 28.8% when comparing the experimental data to Case B. Additionally, the average CFD thermal efficiencies obtained for Case B and Case A were 28.7% and 21.6%, respectively, while the average experimental thermal efficiencies for the cases were 26.4% and 18.2%, respectively. The proposed model can be used to design and simulate other solar air heater designs.
Keywords
air gap, CFD modeling and thermal efficiency, natural convection, solar air heaters
Suggested Citation
El-Sebaey MS, Ellman A, El-Din SS, Essa FA. Thermal Performance Evaluation for Two Designs of Flat-Plate Solar Air Heater: An Experimental and CFD Investigations. (2023). LAPSE:2023.35301
Author Affiliations
El-Sebaey MS: Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom 32511, Egypt [ORCID]
Ellman A: Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Tampere University, 33100 Tampere, Finland [ORCID]
El-Din SS: Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom 32511, Egypt
Essa FA: Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 33516, Egypt [ORCID]
Journal Name
Processes
Volume
11
Issue
4
First Page
1227
Year
2023
Publication Date
2023-04-16
Published Version
ISSN
2227-9717
Version Comments
Original Submission
Other Meta
PII: pr11041227, Publication Type: Journal Article
Record Map
Published Article

LAPSE:2023.35301
This Record
External Link

doi:10.3390/pr11041227
Publisher Version
Download
Files
[Download 1v1.pdf] (11.7 MB)
Apr 28, 2023
Main Article
License
CC BY 4.0
Meta
Record Statistics
Record Views
103
Version History
[v1] (Original Submission)
Apr 28, 2023
 
Verified by curator on
Apr 28, 2023
This Version Number
v1
Citations
Most Recent
This Version
URL Here
https://psecommunity.org/LAPSE:2023.35301
 
Original Submitter
Auto Uploader for LAPSE
Links to Related Works
Directly Related to This Work
Publisher Version