Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Forced-circulation solar water heating system using heat pipe-flat

plate collectors: Energy and exergy analysis
A. Allouhi a, *, M. Benzakour Amine b, M.S. Buker c, T. Kousksou d, A. Jamil a
a
Ecole Sup

erieure de Technologie de F es, U.S.M.B.A, Route d’Imouzzer, BP, 2427, Fez, Morocco
b
Facult

e des Sciences d’El Jadida, Universit

e Chouaib Doukkali, 24000, El Jadida, Morocco
c
Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Konya NEU University, Konya, Turkey
d
Universit

e Pau & Pays Adour/ E2S UPPA, Laboratoire des Sciences de l’Ing
enieur Appliqu
 la M

ees a ecanique et au G

enie Electrique e F

ed

eration IPRA,
EA4581, 64000, Pau, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Seeking innovative methods is critical for efficient solar energy utilization. In this study, a promising
Received 1 February 2019 alternative to the conventional systems is introduced by integrating heat pipes to widely used flat plate
Received in revised form collectors as a means of heat extraction devices. It is expected that such configuration can avoid some of
19 April 2019
the drawbacks that inherently exist in the traditional flat plate collectors. Transient performance analysis
Accepted 8 May 2019
Available online 14 May 2019
was performed for a complete forced circulation solar water heating system operating with a heat pipe
flat plate collector (HPFPC). In addition, thermal behaviour of the whole system and its daily energetic
and exergetic performances were discussed considering hourly weather data from the coldest month of
Keywords:
Heat pipe
the year with the mean daily temperature of 9.56
C in Fez, Morocco. Moreover, a simulation environ-
Solar collector ment was introduced and dynamic simulations were performed to assess the overall performance under
SWH worst-case scenario. Performance factors including solar fraction, collector thermal and exergetic effi-
Transient ciencies were evaluated on hourly and daily basis. The simulation results were compared to the
Solar fraction experimental results found in the literature and they showed a good agreement. These results proved
that the solar water heating system was capable of maintaining reasonable thermal efficiencies of up to
33% and exergetic efficiencies of up to 4% with a daily solar fraction above 58% during the coldest month
of the year in the studied location.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction heating applications in the building sector [6] including evacuated

1.1. Background
Interest in solar energy has been growing rapidly due to envi-
ronmental concerns and awareness of society, plummeting costs
and rapid technological advancements of solar power systems [1].
These systems basically can harness the solar power and convert it
into electricity [2] or heat through photovoltaic modules and most
conventionally through thermal collectors [3]. Structurally, solar
thermal collectors can also be designed to generate electricity by
incorporating photovoltaic cells [4], driving thermodynamic cycles
or cooling by powering thermal refrigeration systems [5]. Recently,
various solar thermal collectors have been commercialized for
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: allouhiamine@gmail.com (A. Allouhi).
flat plate solar collectors for industrial heat and building integra-
tion [7]. By the end of 2013, an overall capacity of 374.7 GWth
corresponding to a total of 535.2 million square meters of collectors
was installed worldwide. The vast majority of total in-service ca-
pacity was installed in China (262.3 GWth) and Europe (44.1 GWth),
together accounted for 82% of the total installed capacity [8]. For
market expansion, the main challenge is to advance in the thermal
efficiencies [9] and to introduce alternative designs [10] at rela-
tively reasonable prices [11].
Solar thermal collectors can be classified according to their
ability to track the sun position as stationary, single-axis and dual
axis tracking systems [12]. Stationary category includes flat plate
collectors (FPCs), evacuated tube collectors (ETCs) and compound
parabolic collectors (CPC) while sun-tracking solar collectors are
parabolic trough, Fresnel, tower and dish Stirling technologies [13].
Surely, the choice of one technology over other is strictly dependent

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.05.063
0360-5442/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
430 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

Nomenclature cw heat capacity of water

Ra-w total thermal resistance between water and outdoor
Gt total incident solar radiation on tilted surface (W/m2) ambient air (K,m2/W)
Tg Temperature of glass cover (
C) m_ mass flow rate of water (kg/s)
Tsky Temperature of sky (
C) Mtan k mass of water inside the storage tank (kg)
Ta Ambient temperature (
C) TN water temperature at the outlet of HPFPC (
C)
w
Tp Temperature of plate (absorber) (
C)
T in
w water temperature at the outlet of HPFPC (
C)
ha-g Convection heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
TH upper input temperature (
C)
hsky-g Radiation heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
TL lower input temperature in the tank bottom (
C)
hp-g total heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K)
DTON upper dead band conditions (
C)
ka thermal conductivity of air (W/m K)
DTOFF lower dead band conditions (
C)
lp-g thermal conductivity of glass cover (W/m K)
t time (s)
Ra Rayleigh value
m_ load flow rate required by the load (kg/s)
Pr Prandtl number
m_ tan k mass flow rate discharged from the storage tank (kg/
g gravitational constant (m/s2)
s)
rp-a per unit area equivalent thermal resistance between
Tmw makeup water temperature (
C)
the absorber plate and ambient air (m2
C/W)
Tmin minimum temperature recorded in the month
rp-e per unit area equivalent thermal resistance between
number i (
C)
the absorber plate and the evaporator section of heat
Tmax maximum temperature recorded in the month
pipe (m2
C/W)
number i (
C)
Ap-e contact surface between the absorber plate and the
heat pipe (m2) Q_ u instantaneous useful thermal power (W)
ke thermal conductivity of evaporator made of copper Gt total incident radiation (W/m2)
(W/m K) Acoll total area of HPFPC (m2)
Ap-i area of absorber over each heat pipe (m2) Q_ aux instantaneous auxiliary energy rate (W)
Me mass of the evaporator section of the heat pipe (kg) Q_ load instantaneous auxiliary thermal load (W)
Tc temperature of condenser section (
C)
Re-c total thermal resistance between the evaporator Greek letters
section and condenser section (
C/W) ag absorbance of glass cover
Re-w thermal resistance due to the heat conduction across s StefaneBoltzmann constant (W/m2 K4)
the wick structure (K,m2/W) εg glass cover emittance
Rev thermal resistance caused by the vapour-liquid b0 volumetric coefficient of expansion (m3/m3
C)
interface (K,m2/W) din insulation thickness (m)
Rcon thermal resistance related to condensation (K,m2/W) de evaporator thickness (m)
kwk effective thermal conductivity of wick structure (W/ ε porosity (%)
m K) rl density of liquid state of working fluid (kg/m3)
ks thermal conductivity of solid (W/m K) rv density of vapor state of working fluid (kg/m3)
kl thermal conductivity of liquid (W/m K) ml dynamic viscosity of working fluid (kg/(m s))
hcon condensing film coefficient h Instantaneous efficiency ()
DT temperature difference between tube wall and liquid j Daily efficiency ()
(
C)
Dhlat latent heat of vaporization of working fluid (K) Abbreviations
kl thermal conductivity of working fluid (W/m K) HPFPC Heat pipe integrated flat plate collector
Aw-c exchange area between condenser section and water PV Photovoltaic
flow (m2) SWH Solar water heating
hw-c heat convection coefficient between condenser and DTC Differential temperature controller
water flow(W/m2 K) FPC Flat plate collectors
j ETC Evacuated tube collectors
Mw mass water contained in node j (l)

on purpose of the application [14], climatic conditions and desired
temperature range [15].
Recent statistics indicate that FPCs and ETCs dominate the solar
thermal market over 90% of the total installed capacity [16].
Generally, FPCs can deliver heat at temperature between 20
C and
80
C while ETCs can operate at higher temperatures varying from
50
C to 200
C [17]. Structurally, although FPCs offer simpler design
and lower maintenance costs, they usually suffer from convection
heat losses through the glass cover. Also, they are more suitable for
sunny climates since their performances drop considerably during
the winter [18]. On the other hand, ETCs demonstrate good
efficiencies in cold regions as they are less exposed to external
temperature due to the vacuum envelop between the inner and
outer tubes [19]. Moreover, they allow a simpler installation and
transportability [20]. In the case of an ETC, thermal energy can be
extracted using a direct flow absorber [21], a U-pipe [22] or a heat
pipe [23].
Currently, substantial effort has been made to improve the ef-
ficiencies of FPCs and ETCs and great quanta of findings have been
reported regarding the current performance characteristics of FPCs
[24], heat pipe collectors [25], evacuated FPCs [26], evacuated tube
collectors [27], glass evacuated tube solar collectors [28], water in-
 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443
glass evacuated tube [29] and polyethylene tubes [30].
Riffat et al. [31] built up a thin membrane flat plate heat pipe
solar collector and formed an analytical model that was used to
simulate heat transfer processes taking place in the collector and
estimate its efficiency. Sivakumar et al. [32] presented an experi-
mental study with flat plate solar collector in which an elliptical
wicked heat pipe using methanol as working fluid was employed.
Maximum instantaneous efficiencies up to 78% were attained
during peak hours with a flow rate of 0.05 kg/s. Zambolin and Del
Col [33] experimentally compared two types of solar collectors (i.e.
flat plate and evacuated tube with compound parabolic concen-
trator) in order to detect their daily energy performance charac-
teristics by testing according to the requirements of EN 12975-2
standard. Al-Mashat and Hasan [34] examined the efficiency of a
well-instrumented ETC consisting of 16 evacuated tubes with
Al2O3/water nanofluids. The performance of the ETC was found to
be much related to the volume concentration of the nanofluids.
Also, the efficiency was enhanced 7.08% and 16.9% by using flat
plate reflector and curved plate reflector, respectively.
Azad [35] conducted comparative analysis on three categories of
solar collectors operating with heat pipes, having different
absorber specifications, condenser structures and geometrical de-
tails. It was found that the efficiency of the collector with finned
absorber plate surpassed other configurations and offered some
advantages such as the ease of production and low unit costs. A
closed-end pulsating heat pipe and a compound parabolic
concentrator were integrated to form a new design of solar col-
lectors [36]. Experiments proved that a stable operation could be
maintained even in cloudy days. With a concentration ratio of 3.4,
the studied configuration could achieve an efficiency of 50%. Wang
el al [37]. proposed an integrated collector/storage solar air heater
employing flat micro-heat pipe arrays combined to a latent thermal
storage. Experimental tests indicated that charging/discharging
efficiency was estimated to be 73.8%/97.1%. Rassamakin et al. [38]
introduced extruded aluminum alloy heat pipes with wide fins and
longitudinal grooves, applied to solar thermal collectors. The sug-
gested concept could reduce hydraulic resistance to 100 Pa while
offering a thermal efficiency of about 72%. Gang et al. [39] pre-
sented a heat pipe photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system to produce
hot water electricity at the same time. Results showed that the
average total thermal and exergetic efficiencies of the designed
collector were 54.1% and 7.3%, respectively.
1.2. Work motivation and contributions
The Moroccan government encourages the local solar panel
manufacturers to meet the increasing demand of domestic solar
energy market [40]. Proposing innovative and low costs configu-
rations of solar thermal collectors and analysing their performance
characteristics under the prevailing meteorological conditions of
Morocco is of great importance. In the present work, a new design
of a solar thermal collector is introduced and integrated into a solar
water heating (SWH) system. This design mainly benefits from the
advantages of both FPC and ETC. It consists of a flat plate collector in
which thermal energy is extracted by heat pipes (i.e: heat pipes flat
plate collector HPFPC). In literature, such configurations are not
extensively discussed despite the advantages they are providing.
This study is novel in terms of introducing a new type of solar
thermal collector by integrating heat pipes with the conventional
flat plate collector, providing a detailed 1-D transient mathematical
model of the proposed system and detecting its energetic and
exergetic performance characteristics under severe meteorological
conditions. The developed simulation environment is able to
compute daily performances based on hourly meteorological data
431
according to the given load profile while implementing control
strategies to ensure a stable system operation.
2. System description
The solar water heating system consists of a heat pipe flat plate
collector, a storage tank, a circulating pump, an electric auxiliary
heater, a differential temperature controller (DTC) and a thermo-
static mixing valve. A schematic diagram of the complete SWH is
shown in Fig. 1.
The used HPFPC thermal collector initially comprises 20 copper
heat pipes which are hermetic enclosures containing fluid at
equilibrium liquid-vapour (distilled water is used in this case).
These devices have the capability to maintain high heat flux at fairly
low temperature difference by using the evaporation and the
condensation processes of internal fluid (see Fig. 2). The heat pipes
are surrounded by aluminium absorber painted in black to allow for
the high absorption of solar energy. To minimize heat exchanges
with ambient air, insulation is employed in the backside area. A
rectangular glass cover is used to limit convection and radiation
heat losses at the top of the collector.
The length of evaporator and condenser are 1745 mm and
78 mm, and their diameters are 8 mm and 14 mm, respectively. The
condenser parts of heat pipes are inserted into a well-insulated
manifold through which heat transfer fluid (water) flows. As solar
radiation is transmitted through the glass cover, a large amount of
thermal energy is absorbed by the aluminium plate (absorber)
which is in a direct contact with the evaporator section of heat
pipes. Meanwhile, phase change occurs and the heat is channelled
to the condenser where the cold water flowing inside the manifold
gains heat through the heat rejection. The size of air gap between
the glass cover and the absorber is 6 cm. The gross collector area is
2.27 m2 while effective irradiation-collection area of the HPFC solar
collector is 1.149 m2.
3. Simulation environment
When dealing with performance assessment of solar forced
circulation water heating systems, it is convenient to use transient
mathematical formulations to capture more accurately the thermal
behavior of these systems because of the inherently transient na-
ture of climatic variables such as solar radiation and ambient
temperature. This work introduces a 1-D transient mathematical
model to describe the performance of the investigated collector.
The simulations were performed for Fez, Morocco (latitude:
34.018
, longitude: -5.008
and altitude of 410 m above the mean
sea level). The climatic condition of Fez is typical Mediterranean
mixed with moderate continental climate undergoing Atlantic in-
fluences. The prevailing ambient condition of city presents a
remarkable variability and is, therefore, suggested for the thermal
analysis of the proposed system. Accordingly, a simulation platform
was developed using MATLAB to analyse the hourly performance of
the proposed SWH system. Firstly, the meteorological data on an
hourly basis were derived by using METEONORM database. Cor-
responding hourly ambient temperatures, wind velocities and solar
radiations on horizontal surfaces were generated as well. Secondly,
hourly values of global solar incident radiations for a tilted surface
were processed. Data reader and radiation processor of TRNSYS
were utilized for this purpose. These climatic data were, then,
loaded to the MATLAB environment and were interpolated using
the fitting tool to comply with the time step required by the nu-
merical algorithm. Several grid dependency tests for different time
steps indicated that Dt ¼ 180s was sufficient for ensuring solution
stability. For an accurate analysis, temperature-dependent water
432 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

Fig. 1. HPFPC and description of the forced circulation SWH.

Fig. 2. Heat pipe working principle.

 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443 433

thermal properties were introduced within the developed code as Also, hp-g is the total heat transfer coefficient between the glass
well. Next, heat transfer coefficients were formulated. Mathemat- cover and the absorber plate.
ical modelling of the HPFPC collectors was introduced and vali- The sky temperature can be estimated as [41]:
dated by comparing the numerical results with previously
published experimental data under the same operating conditions. Tsky ¼ 0:0552T 1:5
a : (2)
The energy equation for a fully-mixed hot water tank was defined
and all control strategies were implemented. For a given hot water The expressions of ha-g and hsky-g are obtained by the following
demand profile, the main outputs of the principal program were equations [42]:
outlet collector and tank temperatures, respectively. Based on these
hag ¼ 2:8 þ 3Vw (3)
outputs, performance indicators such as daily auxiliary energy and
solar fraction were calculated as well. A detailed presentation of the
where Vw is the wind velocity, and
mathematical model is provided in the next subsections.
  
hskyg ¼ 2g s T 2g þ T 2sky Tg þ Tsky (4)
3.1. Governing equations
s is the StefaneBoltzmann constant (s ¼ 5.67  108 W/m2 K4)
The method and mathematical equations suggested in this while εg is the glass cover emittance.
communication, are not necessarily the most accurate available; The global heat exchange coefficient between the glass cover
however, they are commonly applied, easy to use and adequate for and the plate is obtained by:
most of the design computation. So, the mathematical model is
built based on six energy conservation equations: hpg ¼ hpg;r þ hpg;c (5)
The radiation term hp-g,r in the previous formulation can be
 Energy balance of the glass cover;
determined by:
 Energy balance of the aluminium plate (absorber);
 Energy balance of the heat pipe (evaporator section);  

 Energy balance of the heat pipe (condenser section);
s T 2p þ T 2g Tp þ Tg
hpg;r ¼ (6)
 Energy balance of the water circulating in the manifold; 1 þ
12g
2p 2g
 Energy balance of the storage tank.
while the convection term hp-g,c can be calculated using:
Some reasonable assumptions were also considered to simplify
the mathematical model of the system as: Nua ka
hpg;c ¼ (7)
lpg
 Temperature variation across the aluminium plate thickness is
ignored. where ka and lp-g are the thermal conductivity of air and distance
 Radial thermal gradient across the heat pipe is neglected. between the plate and glass cover, respectively. The Nusselt num-
 Resistance due to welding between the aluminium plate and the ber correlation, for tilt angles below 60
is obtained as a function of
heat pipe is neglected. Rayleigh number by [43]:
 Vapour temperature inside the heat pipe corresponds to the
saturation value considered for the internal pressure.  þ ( 1:6
)
1708 1708 ½sinð1:8qÞ
Nua ¼ 1 þ 1:446 1  1
Ra  cos q Ra  cos q
One should note that all the derived equations include 1-D
 0:333 þ
transient formulation. Apart from that, previously published Ra  cos q
studies also considered some additional assumptions in models,
þ 1
5830
mostly neglecting the thermal gradient within certain parts of the
(8)
collectors. Hence, energy equations can be expressed as follows:
The sign (þ) is for only considering the positive values. The
3.1.1. Glass cover Rayleigh value, denoted Ra, is formulated as
Great amount of solar radiation is transmitted through the glass 0

cover but a small portion of it is absorbed which causes an increase gb Pr Tp  Tg l3pg
Ra ¼ (9)
in the cover temperature. Also, glass cover exchanges heat with y2
outdoor environment by radiation and convection and with that of Pr is Prandtl number given as Pr ¼ cp a ma =ka and b’ is the volu-
absorber surface. The energy balance describing the glass cover is
metric coefficient of expansion (b0 ¼ 1=T), n is the kinetic viscosity
given by
of air and g is gravitational constant. Additionally, it should be
vTg
   noted that the thermal properties, in the previous equations are
dg rg cg ¼ ag Gt ðtÞ þ hag Ta  Tg þ hskyg Tsky  Tg evaluated at the mean temperature between the glass cover and
vt

 absorber plate.
þ hpg Tp  Tg (1)

where Gt is total incident solar radiation on tilted surface (W/m2),
ag is the absorbance of glass cover. Temperatures of the glass cover,
sky, ambient and absorber are symbolized with Tg, Tsky, Ta, Tp,
respectively. Moreover, ha-g and hsky-g present the convection and
radiation heat transfer coefficients between the glass cover and the
outdoor environment as well.
3.1.2. Absorber plate
The aluminium absorber plate absorbs the thermal energy
transmitted through the glass cover, exchanges heat with the glass
cover and transfers a certain amount of heat to the evaporator
section. As the absorber covers the whole collector area, it is partly
in contact with the evaporator section. Consequently, two
434 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

differential equations with own discretization schemes should be

considered: 2
Rev ¼ (17)
pdei Le dkwkl
- Absorber in contact with evaporator section


vTp v2 Tp
 Ta  Tp 1
dp rp cp ¼ kp dp 2 þ ap tg Gt ðtÞ þ hpg Tg  Tp þ Rcon ¼ (18)
vt vx rpa pdci Lc hcon


Te  Tp Ape where kwk is effective thermal conductivity of wick structure which
þ
rpe Api can be calculated using the Maxwell expression [45];
(10)  
2 þ kl =ks  2εð1  kl =ks Þ
kwk ¼ ks (19)
2 þ kl =ks þ εð1  kl =ks Þ
- Absorber with no contact with evaporator section
The thermal conductivity of the wick is dependent on the

 thermal conductivities of solid (ks) and liquid (kl) and the wick
vT v2 T
 Ta  Tp
dp rp cp p ¼ kp dp 2p þ ap tg Gt ðtÞ þ hpg Tg  Tp þ porosity ε. One must note that the wick consists of a porous media
vt vx rpa
(saturated liquid water filled a sintered copper wick).
(11) Lastly, hcon presents the condensate film coefficient which is
In the previous equations, rp-a denotes the thermal resistance dependent on the internal fluid and can be derived from the
between the absorber plate and ambient air (expressed in m2
C/ following expression [46]:
W). It depends on the insulation thickness din and thermal con- " #0:25
ductivity kin as well as the convective heat transfer coefficient, ha. g sinðqÞrl ðrl  rv Þk3l Dhlat
Further, rp-e is the thermal resistance between the absorber plate hcon ¼ 1:13 (20)
ml DT Lc
and evaporator section. The evaporator section of heat pipe which
is a function of the contact surface area between the absorber plate
where rl and rv are the densities of liquid and vapour states of the
and the heat pipe is denoted as Ap-e. The thermal conductivity of
working fluid, respectively. DT is the temperature difference be-
evaporator is ke and evaporator thickness is de, respectively. Lastly,
tween tube wall and liquid, Dhlat is latent heat of vaporization of the
Ap-i, in Eq. (10), is the area of absorber of each heat pipe. These two
working fluid while kl and ml are the thermal conductivity and
thermal resistances can be expressed as
dynamic viscosity of the working fluid, respectively.
din 1
rpa ¼ þ (12)
kin ha
3.1.4. Heat pipe (condenser section)
and The resulting vapour leaves the evaporator and passes to the
condenser section. The cooling water in the manifold absorbs
de rejected heat during the condensation process of the internal fluid.
rpe ¼ (13)
ke The energy balance for the condenser section can be written as

vTc Te  Tc
Mc cc ¼ þ Awc hwc ðTw  Tc Þ (21)
vt Rec
3.1.3. Heat pipe (evaporator section) Aw-c is the exchange area between the condenser section and
The energy received by the absorber plate is transferred into the water flow through the manifold. The heat convection coefficient
heat pipe through the evaporator section. Energy balance for the between the condenser and water noted hw-c is evaluated as sug-
evaporator section is given as gested by [47]:

vTe Tc  Te Tp  Te "
5=8 #4=5
Me cc ¼ þ (14) kl 0:62Re1=2 Pr1=3 Re
vt Rec Rpe hwc ¼ 0:3 þ h 1þ (22)
D
2=3 i1=4 282000
1 þ 0:4
Pr
Me describes the mass of evaporator part, Tc is the temperature
of condenser section and Re-c is the total thermal resistance
To compute the Reynolds and Prandtl numbers in the above
(expressed in
C/W) between the evaporator section and condenser
equation, it is essential to consider thermal properties of water at
section, respectively. Re-c is the sum of (i) thermal resistance due to
the film temperature;
the heat conduction across the wick structure (Re-w), (ii) thermal
resistance caused by the vapour-liquid interface (Rev) and (iii) the
Tf ¼ ðTw þ Tc Þ=2 (23)
thermal resistance related to condensation (Rcon) [44]:

Rec ¼ Rew þ Rev þ Rcon (15)

with
  3.1.5. Water inside the manifold
Dowk Water from the storage tank circulates inside the manifold
ln Diwk
Rew ¼ (16) through which it draws thermal energy from the rejected heat at
2pLe kwc
the condenser section of heat pipes. The energy equation of water
inside the manifold, for the node j, is given as
 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443 435

one unique matrix was built and all variables were identified
vT
j
   T T j   simultaneously. The temperature evolution inside the water tank
a
M jw cw w þ m cw T jw  T j1
w ¼ w
þ Awc hwc Tc  T jw
vt Raw was obtained by a first-order backward Euler discretization of the
(24) energy balance concerning water inside the storage tank. It should
be highlighted that the temperature-dependent thermo-physical
j
M w is the mass water contained in node j, cw is the heat capacity of properties involved in the computation process were assessed at
water, Ra-w is the total thermal resistance between water and the previous time step. Table 1 summarizes the main geometrical
 specifications and thermo physical properties of materials used in
outdoor ambient air, and m is the mass flow rate of water circu- the present simulation.
lating inside the manifold.

3.1.6. Water inside the hot storage tank 3.2. System operation and control
The hot water at the exit of the HPFPC is stored in a hot storage
tank. Generally, thermal stratification cannot be obtained for small The system under study is based on the forced-circulation
storage volumes or when the hot water demand profile is contin- principle, in which the pump operation through a closed loop
uous during the day. In such conditions, the fully mixed regime is a should be controlled as a function of the hot water tank and col-
good physical approximation as indicated by Soriga and Badescu lector outlet temperatures.
[48]. The temperature profile inside the tank is described by the Control of the proposed HPFPC system is achieved by a differ-
following energy balance; ential temperature controller which generates control signals on an
hourly basis. The control strategy is simple and low-cost and,
vTtan k Ta  Ttank therefore, it is the most utilized control method in solar heating
Mtank cw ¼
vt rat applications. The control mechanism depends on two tempera-
 
þ m cw TwN in
 Tw þ mload cw ðTmw  Ttank Þ tures: upper input temperature (TH) which is the water tempera-
ture at the collector outlet and lower input temperature which is
(25) the water temperature in the tank bottom (TL). To avoid frequent
ON-OFF cycling of the pump, which may cause technical problems,
where Mtan k is the mass of water inside the storage tank and, T N
w it is essential to adjust upper and lower dead band conditions,
and T in
w are the water temperature at the outlet and inlet of the denoted as DTON and DTOFF, respectively. The control signal by
 which the DTC operates is obtained by the following logic
HPFPC, respectively. m is the mass flow rate circulating between
 expressions;
the collector and the hot storage tank, and m load is the load mass If the control signal is 1 at time t;
flow rate.

1 if TH  TL  DTOFF
3.1.7. Initial and boundary conditions
gðt þ DtÞ ¼ (29)
0 otherwise
To complete the mathematical formulation of the previous
model, the initial and boundary conditions are required: If the control signal is 0 at time t;

1 if TH  TL  DTON
- Initial temperature conditions for glass cover, absorber plate, gðt þ DtÞ ¼ (30)
0 otherwise
heat pipe, water inside the manifold as well as water inside the
tank are supposed to be equal to ambient temperature at the To be sure that the load is supplied at the desired temperature
first hour of simulation. Thus, and flow rate, water drawn from the hot storage tank should be
mixed with the cold water. The mass flow rate of cold water can be
Tg ðx; t ¼ 0Þ ¼ Tp ðx; t ¼ 0Þ ¼ Te ðx; t ¼ 0Þ ¼ Tc ðx; t ¼ 0Þ determined by applying mass and energy balance across the mixing
¼ Tw ðx; t ¼ 0Þ ¼ Ttan k ðt ¼ 0Þ device. Therefore, following expressions can be applied as
¼ Ta ðt ¼ 0Þ (26) 8 
>
< mload if Ttank  Tload
mtank ¼ T  Tmw (31)
>
: mload load if Ttank > Tload
- Boundary conditions for Eqs. (10)-(11) are given as follows: Ttank  Tmw
 
vTp  vTp   
¼ ¼0 (27) where m load is the flow rate required by the load, m tan k is the mass
vx x¼0 vx x¼L
- Boundary condition of water inside the manifold is character-
ized with known temperature which corresponds to the tem-
perature of the tank at the previous time step.
Tw ðx ¼ 0Þ ¼ Ttank ðj  1Þ (28)
These set of equations was solved numerically using a fully-
implicit scheme in time and finite difference method for each col-
lector element including glass cover, absorber plate, heat pipe
(evaporator and condenser sections) and water inside the manifold.
The discretization process generated algebraic equations. The res-
olution technique considers reassembling all the researched vari-
ables, for the given spatial nodes, into one single vector. As a result,
flow rate discharged from the storage tank and Tmw is the makeup
water temperature supplied by the network. Note that, for accurate
prediction of the thermal performance, monthly variation in
ambient temperature can be defined with the function given in Eq.
(32) [49].
Tmax þ Tmin Tmax  Tmin i2
Tmw ðiÞ ¼  h cos 2p (32)
2 2 12
where Tmin and Tmax are the minimum and maximum tempera-
tures recorded in the month number i, respectively. The symbol h
takes 1 for regions located in the Northern Hemisphere and 1 in
the regions located in the Southern Hemisphere.
For some safety considerations, it was suggested to remove
certain amount of hot water inside the tank to avoid overheating
436 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

Table 1
Main geometrical and thermo physical properties of used materials.

Layer Parameter Description Unit Value

Glass cover tg Transmittance % 95

rg Density kg/m3 2500
Cg Specific heat capacity J/kg K 720
ag Absorptivity e 0.04
εg Emissivity e 0.88
dg Thickness mm 10
Aluminium plate (absorber) rp Density of aluminum kg/m3 2698
Cp Specific heat capacity J/kg K 921
kp Thermal conductivity W/m K 204
dp Thickness mm 1.5
Insulation kin Thermal conductivity W/m K 0.03
din Thickness mm 40
Heat-pipe Deo Outer diameter of heat pipe evaporator section mm 8
Dco Outer diameter of heat pipe condenser section mm 14
kl Wick thermal conductivity liquid phase W/m K 0.68
ks Wick thermal conductivity solid phase (copper) W/m K 325
Le Length of evaporator 1745
Lc Length of condenser mm 78
ε Porosity % 50
de Thickness of evaporator mm 0.7
dwk Thickness of wick mm 0.5
Cc Specific heat capacity of copper heat pipe J/kg K 376.8

depending on the maximum allowable temperature in the tank

(Ttank-max which is equal to 100
C in the present case). The water
ð tss 
quantity removed from the tank is given by the following equation;
Exu dt
8 jex ¼ ðttsrss (36)
>
<0 if Ttank  Ttankmax 
Exs dt
Mdtank ¼ Ttank  Ttankmax (33) tsr
>
: rw Vtan k otherwise
Ttank  Tmw
with
If the solar system is not capable of meeting the load, a back-up
(auxiliary heater) could operate to elevate the water temperature to
the desired level. The energy rate provided by the auxiliary heater tðss tðss
 
can be obtained by the following expression; Qu dt ¼ m cw ðTout  Tin Þdt (37)
( tsr tsr
mload  cw ðTload  Ttank Þ if Ttank < Tload
Qaux  ¼ (34)
0 otherwise
tðss tðss

Qs dt ¼ Acoll Gt dt (38)
tsr tsr

3.3. Performance indices

tðss

tðss 

 Tout
Exu dt ¼ m cw ðTout  Tin Þ  Ta ln dt (39)
Tin
The current investigation is about the performance evaluation of tsr tsr
the proposed system by considering the daily thermal efficiencies
and daily solar fractions during the coldest month of the year in Fez,
Morocco. The aim is to discuss the performance characteristics tðss tðss "

 #
under the most unfavourable weather conditions and find out  4 Ta 1 Ta 4
Exs dt ¼ Acoll Gt 1  þ dt (40)
minimum efficiencies. This is a key aspect of detecting system 3 Tsun 3 Tsun
limitations under severe weather conditions. tsr tsr

Based on the instantaneous temperature distributions obtained Gt is the total incident radiation received by the collector surface
from the previously presented mathematical model, one can define and Acoll is the total area of the HPFPC. Also, tsr and tss are the
the daily thermal and exergetic efficiencies as follows; sunrise and sunset of the considered day. The previous quantities
are integrated numerically using the trapeze method between the
ð tss  sunrise and sunset at each day in the month of January. It should be
Qu dt
stressed that the same time step is used in these numerical in-
j ¼ ðttsrss 
(35) tegrations as that used in the discretization of energy balance
Qs dt equations (i.e. 180 s).
tsr
The daily solar fraction based on the daily energy consumption
by the auxiliary heater can be expressed as
 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443 437

ð t¼86400s 
Q aux dt
t¼0
SF ¼ 1  ð t¼86400s (41)

Q load dt
t¼0

 
where Q aux and Q load are the instantaneous auxiliary energy rate
and thermal load at time t, respectively. Similarly, these values are
integrated numerically as described earlier.

4. Results and discussion

In this section, the thermal behaviour on hourly and daily basis

as well as the performance of the proposed HPFPC system is dis-
cussed. As highlighted previously, a detailed analysis will concern
the coldest month of the year in the region of Fez, Morocco. This can
be decisive for the social acceptance and application by households
in Morocco.
First, a model validation is presented to justify the ability of the
mathematical formulation to simulate the thermal behaviour of the
collector. Next, the instantaneous thermal response of the collector
and its performance are described in detail by considering the re-
sults for one single winter day. Finally, daily results of the whole
month of January are presented and discussed.
4.1. Model validation
To validate the developed model, a comparison between the
simulation results and experimental data presented by Hussein
[50] was performed. In his study, Hussein [50] theoretically and
experimentally examined a wickless heat pipes flat plate solar
collector with a cross flow heat exchanger under the climate of
Cairo, Egypt. The simulation inputs in this study were taken similar
to those used in the experimental setup of Hussein's work. These
inputs include geometrical and physical specifications of the col-
lector elements, outdoor climate data namely global solar radiation,
ambient temperature as well as operating conditions such as the
mass flow rate of water circulating inside the manifold (0.0458 kg/
s), number of collectors in series and parallel, number of heat pipes
in each single collector and inlet water temperature entering the
thermal collector. In addition, the thermal resistance of the heat
pipe was rearranged to describe the thermal behaviour of a wick-
less heat pipe as described in the experimental procedure. The
hourly outlet water temperature leaving the collector was simu-
lated using the developed code and results were summarized in
Table 2. As presented in the tabular form, the absolute deviation
between simulated and experimental water temperature at the
collector exit did not exceed 0.34
C. Therefore, the results confirm
that the developed mathematical model is able to describe the
thermal behaviour of the system successfully.
Fig. 3. Realistic load profile during a winter period (adapted from [53]).
4.2. Thermal behaviour
To investigate the system performance under real operating
conditions, a case study regarding solar hot water production for a
single family was considered. The system is designed to meet the
hot water demand for 3 occupants in a residential apartment. The
load profile affected the overall system design and performance,
especially the daily auxiliary energy need [51]. Accordingly, for an
accurate prediction of the HPFPC performance, a realistic winter
load profile based on statistical data analysis as provided in [52]
was considered. This load profile is displayed in Fig. 3. The daily
domestic hot water demand was estimated to be 160 L. Peak period
of hot water usage was expected to be in the early morning with
maximum volume of 17.8 L at 08:00 am. In the first analysis, the
number of heat pipes in the collector was taken to be 20 while the
solar loop mass flow rate was considered as 0.03 kg/s.
The developed program was run for a period of 8760 h with a
time step of 180s with respect to the meteorological data of Fez.
First, average results were presented for a typical day in January
(coldest month of the year in Fez). Thus, the ambient temperature,
global solar radiations on a tilted surface of 30
, cold water tem-
perature and wind velocities for 9th of January are illustrated in
Fig. 4. Next, daily performances were reported for each day in
January. It should be mentioned that the hourly data was interpo-
lated using the MATLAB fitting toolbox to match with the devel-
oped computational procedure. Also, the tilt angle of 30
was
considered in all the simulations corresponds to the optimum
annual value engendering the highest annual output thermal en-
ergy (see Fig. 5). However, if a monthly adjustment of the solar
collector was achievable, the optimum tilt angle during January

Table 2
Validation of the current model with experimental results reported by [50].

Time (h) Gt (W/m2) Tamb (
C) Tin (
C) Two_exp (
C) Two_sim (
C) Absolute deviation (
C)

8 213 25 38.5 40.07656 40.116 0.039

9 398 27 38.8 40.10514 39.9654 0.139
10 559 28.5 38 41.9333 41.7026 0.230
11 674 30 39.3 43.42461 43.0916 0.333
12 774 31.9 40.3 46.27967 45.9635 0.316
13 803 32.98 43.1 47.20388 46.898 0.305
14 787 33.9 44.1 47.70278 47.479 0.223
15 706 34 45 47.04756 46.9262 0.121
16 557 34.4 45 47.11178 47.1732 0.061
438 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

Fig. 6. Hourly temperature variation in each part of the HPFPC on Jan 09th.

Fig. 4. Hourly climatic data in Fez on Jan 09th.

Fig. 7. Spatial and temporary variation of water temperature inside the manifold on
Jan 09th.

Fig. 5. Thermal energy output of the collector for various tilt angles in Fez.

Fig. 8. Instantaneous variation of the thermal efficiency of the HPFPC on Jan 09th.
 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443 439

would be 60
. Moreover, the presented values of outdoor ambient

temperature were in the range of 3e12
C. Maximum outdoor
temperature was observed at 15h00 and the minimum was iden-
tified in the early morning. The first day of the cold period
demonstrated some variations especially during the morning, i.e.
solar incident and wind velocity. For instance, total solar incident
radiations (direct, diffuse and ground-reflected) followed nearly a
sinewave profile between sunrise and sunset. This profile was
characterized by a maximum constant value around 650 W/m2
between 11h00 and 14h00. In addition, the wind velocity was also
variant throughout the day. The maximum daily value of 5 m/s was
recorded during the night. The cold-water temperature, computed
by Eq. (32), was found to be 11.04
C as well.
In order to display the thermal behaviour of the HPFPC, average
temperatures on the various parts of collector is displayed for
January 9th in Fig. 6. This figure illustrates the temperatures of the
glass cover and absorber (Tg and Tp), the evaporator/condenser
sections (Te and Tc), and the water inside the manifold as well as
inside the hot storage tank (Tw and Ttank).
Due to low absorbance and high transmittance of the glass-
cover, and the radiative and convective-heat losses to surround-
ings, glass cover temperature was generally below 20
C. On the
hand, due to high absorptivity, relatively high absorber surface
temperatures were attained with the maximum of 64
C at 14h00.
Also, due to the low thermal resistance between the absorber and
evaporator section of the heat pipe, minimal temperature varia-
tions were observed with the deviation of less than 0.2
C. Similarly,
the highest temperature difference between the evaporator and
condenser was obtained as 2.7
C. Meanwhile, the water temper-
ature inside the manifold was at its maximum value of 53
C. One
can notice that the temperature deviation between the condenser
and evaporator was reduced substantially. During the night, the
condenser temperature was slightly higher than the evaporator
temperature with less than 2
C difference. This can be attributed to
the thermal inertia of water inside the manifold, which releases
heat during the night. One important remark has been highlighted
by Zhang et al. [53] regarding the thermal behaviour of the
absorber temperature when simulating the same device under
steady state regime using a three-dimensional CFD model. Authors
highlighted that because of buoyancy effect, the temperature dif-
ference between the air and the plate at the bottom of the gap was
higher than that of in the upper gap. They concluded that the
temperature of the absorber near the bottom of the evaporator was

Fig. 9. Daily meteorological data of January in Fez.

Fig. 10. Daily thermal efficiencies of the HPFPC on January in Fez.

440 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443

Fig. 11. Diagrams showing energy/exergy balances of the collector.

Fig. 12. Daily solar fractions of the HPFPC based SWH on January in Fez: an analysis according to the set temperature.
 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443 441

lower than that of near the top of the evaporation section. By Overall, the average daily efficiency in the month of January was
referring to their numerical results, the maximum deviation be- found to be about 48%. The exergetic efficiencies exhibited a
tween the top and bottom absorber temperature in the longitudinal different tendency because of ambient temperature. In general,
direction was in the range of 1e2
C when running at high insola- daily exergetic efficiencies were in the range of 4e8%. Fig. 11 dis-
tion; however, the deviation was found to be marginal when plays energy and exergy balances of the collector considering
operating at solar radiation of less than 700 W/m2. Therefore, outputs for January in Fez. As can be seen, the available solar energy
ignoring temperature gradient in the longitudinal direction (1-D and exergy in January are 406.38 kWh and 23.79 kWh, respectively.
dimensional analysis) was acceptable. This figure also shows that The useful energy and exergy produced by the collector are
the maximum achievable temperature inside the tank was 52
C on 200.26 kWh and 1.65 kWh, respectively.
January 9th. The next set of results was based on the analysis of the effect of
In Fig. 7, a 3-D plot shows the transient profile of water tem- various operating conditions and design specifications on the pre-
perature along the manifold. The maximum outlet temperature dicted thermal performances. The set temperature of hot water was
was about 57
C at 15h12 while the maximum difference between decisive on the daily solar fraction as depicted in Fig. 12. By
the inlet and outlet water temperature was about 8.1
C at 12h03
time, which implies a thermal gradient of 5.26
C/m.
The instantaneous thermal and exergetic efficiencies of the
collector were presented in Fig. 8 for the same day. Maximum
instantaneous thermal efficiency of 55% was obtained between
11h00 and 12h00. However, the maximum exergetic efficiency of
6.9% was attained between 14h00 and 14h30. The instantaneous
thermal efficiency was nearly same during sunny hours of the day.
This was probably because the intensity of solar irradiance falling
on per unit area of the collector was indifferent in the same same
period. However, peak exergetic efficiencies were found to be
occurred in different periods comparing with thermal efficiencies.
This behaviour could be explained by the fact that although higher
ambient temperature was able to boost the thermal efficiency, this,
however, resulted in a decrease in exergetic efficiency.

4.3. Daily performance and parametric study

The analysis was extended from the coldest day to the coldest
month (January) of the year to draw clear conclusions about the
overall system performance under worst-case scenario testing.
Fig. 9 presents the hourly variation of global solar radiation in-
cidents on the tilted surface, ambient temperatures as well as the
wind velocities recorded for the whole month of January. The data
were fitted using the MATLAB fitting tool and loaded to the
developed simulation program to comply with the discretization
time step. As can be clearly seen from the Fig. 9 that, for the studied
site, the solar radiation falling upon the per unit area of the col-
lector varied considerably throughout the days on January. The
maximum daily solar radiation was over 1000 W/m2 for 2 days.
Insolation values between 800 and 1000 W/m2 were observed for
16 days, 600 and 800 W/m2 for 6 days and less than 600 W/m2 for
the remaining days on January. Also, the coldest month was char-
acterized by the lowest temperatures even below 0
C for a few
days. Through the month, the average daily ambient temperature
was around 9.56
C. Fig. 9 also shows the profile of wind velocity. As
the maximum wind speed was recorded to be 13.95 m/s, the
average wind velocity was found to be 3 m/s while standard devi-
ation was 2.238 m/s. It is known that the wind velocity can accel-
erate convective heat losses through the surface of the collector.
The initial performance analysis was performed regarding the
assessment of daily thermal efficiency and daily solar fraction. First,
the set temperature at which hot water was required was fixed to
55
C. In addition, the number of heat pipe considered in the
simulation process was 20. The daily thermal and exergetic effi-
ciencies of HPFPC are displayed in Fig. 10. It is shown that a
maximum daily thermal efficiency of 55% could be achieved while
the minimum daily thermal efficiency was around 27%. By referring
to the metrological data, it can be stated that the most influential
parameter on this performance index was the incident solar radi-
ation. For this reason, the lowest efficiency was attained when Fig. 13. Performance of HPFPC on January in Fez: an analysis according to the number
there was no or little solar radiation available on 27th of January. of heat pipes used in the collector.
442 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443
Fig. 14. Daily solar fractions of the HPFPC on January in Fez: an analysis according to the number of heat pipes used in the collector.
changing the set temperature from 50
C to 60
C, the daily solar
fraction was reduced by up to 30%. To exemplify, when operating at
a set temperature of 60
C, the daily solar fraction decreased
significantly below 55%, especially in the coldest days (6th and 10th
of January). In fact, the daily solar fraction was negatively affected
by the energy consumption of the auxiliary back-up system.
The daily thermal/exergetic efficiencies and the solar fraction
are shown in Fig. 13 and Fig. 14, respectively. The results were ob-
tained at a fixed set temperature of 55
C. Increasing the number of
pipes was resulted in enhancement of the daily thermal efficiency,
exergetic efficiency and solar fraction as the useful energy gain of
the HPFPC was enhanced considerably. As a result, this allowed
higher outlet temperatures with less auxiliary energy. However, the
performance was improved until when 15 pipes were considered,
after which the performance enhancement was minimal. There-
fore, the optimum number of heat pipes for the given application
was 15. This trend was similar to what was highlighted by Daghigh
and Shafieian [54] for a standard heat pipe evacuated tube collector
application. For a collector with 25 heat pipes under severe oper-
ating conditions, the minimum daily thermal and exergetic effi-
ciencies were higher than 33% and 4%, respectively. Also, the related
daily solar fractions were above 58%.
5. Conclusions
In this work, a new type of SWH based on the integration of the
heat pipes into the ordinary flat plate collector was introduced. The
mathematical modelling for this system was developed and vali-
dated with previously published experimental data. The thermal
behaviour of the whole SWH system including HPFPC was inves-
tigated under severe winter operating conditions. For this purpose,
a simulation platform was developed using MATLAB to analyse the
energetic performance. In the simulation environment, hourly
average meteorological data of Fez, Morocco, was drawn by using
METEONORM database. The concluding remarks are outlined as
follows.
Simulation results showed a distinct difference between the
temperature of glass cover and absorber surface up to 45
C due to
low absorbance and high transmittance of the glass-cover and,
considerable heat losses to the surroundings. In contrast, low
thermal resistance between the absorber and evaporator section of
the heat pipe marked a minimal temperature difference of less than
0.2
C. Additionally, the maximum temperature difference between
the evaporator and condenser sections was recorded to be around
2.7
C.
Furthermore, a maximum outlet temperature of 57
C with
corresponding maximum instantaneous thermal efficiency of up to
55% were obtained for a typical winter day in Fez. For the same day,
it was shown that the instantaneous exergetic efficiency could
exceed 6.9%. The parametric analyses were also performed to show
the effect of the set temperature on the daily solar fraction. Aug-
menting the set temperature from 50
C to 60
C, the solar fraction
can be diminished by about 27%.
Lastly, an important design parameter that should be optimized
to guarantee a tradeoff between the energetic performance and the
collector cost is the number of pipes integrated in the solar col-
lector. Overall analysis showed that the optimum number of heat
pipes for the proposed application was 15. One can conclude that
for a more precise optimization regarding the number of heat pipes,
a detailed life cycle cost analysis of the SWH could be performed as
well.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support provided by the “Institut
de Recherche en Energie Solaire et Energies Nouvelles (IRESEN)”
under the project SOL'R SHEMSY.
 A. Allouhi et al. / Energy 180 (2019) 429e443 443

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