Performance and Design Optimization of Solar Collectors

Abstract

The objective of the present work was to conduct a comparative analysis of solar collectors. The experimental set-up consists of two flat plate solar collectors, the first collector was with a fixed surface tilted at 30о towards the South, and the second one was equipped with dual-axis rotation system. A programmable chronological tracker was used to control the motion of the moving collector. An experimental programme was performed to investigate the effect of the sun tracking system usage on the collector efficiency. The study includes development of a 3-D mathematical model of the system and extensive numerical simulation, based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The main aim of the modelling is to provide information on heat transfer, and to numerically simulate the heat transfer performances and the energy capture capabilities of the fixed and moving collectors in various operating modes. The comparative analysis shows that there is a good agreement between the experimental and numerically predicted results for different running conditions, and the presented modelling approach can be used for further investigations, including more complex problems.