Professional Documents
Culture Documents
on
FLAT PLATE COLLECTOR
for the partial fulfilment of Bachelor of Technology
BY
ABHILASH (10214210001)
AVINASH KUMAR PANDEY (10214210012)
BHASKAR UNIYAL (10214210014)
MUKUL KAUSHIK (10214210029)
PARDEEP KUMAR (10214210035)
This is to certify that project entitled “FLAT PLAT COLLECTOR” by Mr. Mukul
Kaushik, Mr. Pardeep Kumar, Mr. Abhilash, Mr. Avinash Kumar Pandey and Mr.
Bhaskar Uniyal, under the guidance of Prof. Ashok Kumar Mishra was completed
for completing the bachelor of technology in mechanical.
---------------------------- ----------------------------------
ABHILASH (10214210001)
AVINASH KUMAR PANDEY (10214210012)
BHASKAR UNIYAL (10214210014)
MUKUL KAUSHIK (10214210029)
PARDEEP KUMAR (10214210035)
2. Literature Survey 14
5. Reference 22
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Basic introduction
A solar thermal collector collects heat by absorbing sunlight. Solar
collectors are either Concentrating or Non-Concentrating.
Concentrated solar power systems generate solar power by using mirrors or
lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a
small area. Example: - parabolic dish
In the Non-concentrating type, the collector area (i.e., the area that intercepts
the solar radiation) is the same as the absorber area (i.e., the area absorbing
the radiation). In these types the whole solar panel absorbs light. Flat plate
collector falls under non concentrating collector.
A flat plate collector is a device used as a heat exchanger to raise the
temperature of the working fluid which is generally air or water by
transferring heat of flat plate to the working fluid.
A Flat-plate Solar Collector (FPC) is a widely used solar energy collection
device for applications that require heat at temperatures below 80°C. A
typical liquid FPC consists of a selectively black coated absorber plate of
high thermal conductivity (such as copper or aluminium), one or more
transparent covers, thermal insulation, heat removal system and outer
casing.
The transparent cover reduces the convective and radiative heat losses from
the absorber plate to the surrounding. To achieve operating temperatures
higher than 80°C, two glass covers may also be used. The heat collected by
the absorber plate is extracted by circulating a working fluid through the
riser tubes attached to the absorber plate, which are further connected to a
larger pipe called header at both ends.
1. Parallel tube solar collector: In this type of solar air collector 2 types
of tubes are used called main fold tubes and the raiser tubes. The air
enters and exits the setup through main fold tubes and attached to smaller
diameter raiser tubes aligned parallel to each other.
Fig1.8
Fig 1.9
3. Trickle type solar collector: In this type of solar collector no tube is
used instead metal plate is bent for passage for air.
1.4.2 Based on design:-
1. Unglazed Air Collectors: The term "unglazed air collector" refers to a
solar air heating system that consists of an absorber without any glass or
glazing over top. This technology was invented and patented by Canadian
engineer John Hollick of Conserval Engineering Inc. in the 1990s.
Application
This flat plate collector can be used for various purposes:
Domestically, it can be attached on roof and through air ducts the room
temperature can be maintained in winters.
Agriculturally, It can be used for rising temperature of green houses for
plants and crops which need more warm temperature to grow.
Commercially, the hot air can be used as dryer in laundry houses, car wash
etc
Similar to domestic, they can be used in offices and restaurants to maintain
warm temperature.
Advantage
The flat plate collector has some advantages over other solar collectors:
The design is simple hence maintenance is easy.
Cost of instalment is less than other solar products
Limitations
There are also some disadvantages of flat plate collector:
Efficiency is very low
Low output temperature
1.6 Some basic information
Sun intensity: Sun intensity refers to the amount of incoming solar energy, or
radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface. The angle at which the rays from the sun
hit the Earth determines this intensity. The sun’s angle -- and hence intensity --
varies significantly depending on a particular spot’s geographic location, the time
of year, and the time of day.
Kurtbas and Turgut (2006): They investigated the solar air heater with free
and fixed fins using exergy analysis. In this study each of the fins with
rectangular shape was having two different surface areas and located on the
absorber surface in free and fixed manners. In the first type, the fins were
located on the absorber surface in a way that the fins are able to move freely,
while in the second type model fins were fixed to the absorber surface. The
absorber surface area was 1.64 m2 while the fixed and free fins with 8 and
32 items were having surface areas 0.048 and 0.012 m2respectively.
Therefore the total fin area in the absorber surface was equal to
0.384m2.They found that the fins located in flow area increases the heat
transfer coefficient and output temperature of air due to which collector
efficiency increases too. Also they found that there exists a reverse
relationship between exergy loss ratio and collector efficiency as well as
temperature difference of the fluid. Thus if there is increase in the pressure
drop, both heat transfer and exergy loss were also found to be
enhanced, while it has been observed that the exergy loss ratio was affected
less because heater has very little pressure drop.
Ucar and Inallı (2006): They worked on the solar air collectors with
passive augmentation techniques using exergetic analysis. In order to
provide better heat transfer surfaces suitable for the passive heat transfer
augmentation techniques different shape and arrangement of absorber
surfaces of the collectors were reorganized. The performance of such solar
air collectors with staggered absorber sheets and attached fins on absorber
surface were analyzed and tested. It has been found that the efficiency of
solar collector has been increased approximately 10% to 30% as compared
with the conventional solar collector using the passive techniques. In
conventional solar air heater, only a little part of solar energy absorbed by
the collector can be used therefore the performance of the conventional solar
air heater was found to be least..
Kurtbas and Durmus (2007): They designed a new solar air heater and
evaluated it on the basis of exergy analysis. In their study they used five
solar collectors with dimensions of 0.9x0.4 m and the flow line increased
where it had narrowed and expanded geometrically in shape. These
collectors were set to four different cases with dimensions of 1x2 m.
Therefore, heating fluids exit the solar collector after at least 4.5 m
displacement. According to the collector geometry, turbulence occurs in
fluid flow and in this way heat transfer is increased. In this study they
found that the efficiency of the collector enhances with the increase of mass
flow rates due to an enhanced heat transfer to the air flow and also increase
in efficiency depends on the surface geometry of the collector and extension
of the air flow line. Collector efficiency, temperature difference of the air
and pressure loss is the more important parameters in order to decrease the
exergy loss.
Objective of Work
From the above Literature Survey, we find out following objective of our research:
4.2 Summary
The summary is as follows
The flat plate collector is a mechanical device which raises the temperature
of the fluid flowing in the metallic tubes by the mode of heat transfer with
energy source being sunlight.
The main components are glazing, metal plate, flow passage, insulation,
blower or pump and enclosure.
There Are 3 types of flat plate air collector according to shape of tubes-
parallel, Serpentine and Trickle.
According to design there are two types of design- Glazed and unglazed
solar collector.
William H. Goettl developed the first solar collector.
John Hollick developed the first solar flat plate air collector.
The flat plate collector can be used for household purposes like washing,
bathing etc, it can also be used for agricultural purposes for maintaining
temp for growth of food products