Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Experimental determination of the effect of change in relative roughness

pitch on the thermo-hydraulic performance of air heater working with
solar energy
Gagan Bansal a, Chandra Kishore a,⇑, R. Meby Selvaraj b, Vijay Kumar Dwivedi c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graphic Era Deemed to be University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, AAA College of Engineering and Technology, Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, India
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, GLA University, Mathura, U.P. 281406, India

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

Article history: Solar Air Heater has recently developed the effective utilization of renewable, natural and non-
Received 28 November 2020 conventional energy for environmental sustainability. It is the most appreciating natural resource avail-
Received in revised form 8 January 2021 able for sustainable development. The current work deals with the analysis of thermo-hydraulic proper-
Accepted 13 January 2021
ties of solar air heater with specific parameter variation i.e. Relative Roughness Pitch (RRP). As already
Available online xxxx
diagnosed the effect of relative roughness height, width, etc. using MATLAB. Here the authors have specif-
ically focused on the effect of RRP on the solar air heater’s performance. The system utilized some fixed
Keywords:
parameters such as, 0.88 emittance of the glass, 0.9 emittance of plate and transmittance- absorptance as
Relative roughness pitch (RRP)
Solar air heater (SAH)
0.8. Also the 0.004 m single glass cover thickness is considered with thermal conductivity of insulation as
Computational 0.037 W/m-K. For the analysis purpose, the range of RRP is kept between 6 and 12. Related to operating
Characterization parameters, Ambient temperature is kept 300 K (fixed) and Wind velocity 1 m/s (assumed fixed) whereas
Thermohydraulic Insulation is kept in the variable range of 500–1000 W/m2. Finally, the results are recorded and the inter-
Relative roughness width (RRW) pretations are made based on the validated data and the outcome results.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Technological Advancements in Materials Science and Manufacturing.

1. Introduction
One of the most important requirement for energy conservation
and energy utilization in the current synerio is the hunt for eco-
friendly, sustainable, cost effective and natural source [1]. The
use of solar energy has brought about the revolution in the hours
of scarcity of non – renewable energy resources and turned out
to be the most effective and best energy source. The application
of solar is been observed in all the fields of science. The use of solar
energy in development of air heater, effectively named as solar air
heater is also one of the effective applications of sun energy [2].
Now the current researchers are dealing with the optimization of
developed technologies. The major applications of the SAH are
for the sustainable development of the society [3].
In the current research, the efforts are made to computationally
analyze the effect of RRP on the thermohydraulic characteristics of
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ckiitphd@gmail.com (C. Kishore).
SAH. The idea was generated by reviewing the work by Verma &
Varshneyin 2015 [4] where the thermohydraulic analysis is per-
formed with several varying parameters and Kumar, A in 2014
[5] who performed an analysis of fluid flow in various roughness
elements and solar air heater ducts. Several parameters are being
discussed and the results were obtained for different manipula-
tions within the same setup.
2. Methodology for performance
The relationships of Nusselt number and friction factor of mul-
tiple v ribs developed by Hans et al., 2010 [6] are used for predic-
tion of thermal and thermohydraulic performance. Various
different characterizations are analysed with the same experimen-
tal setup shown in Fig. 1. In the current research, the effect of
change in Relative Roughness Pitch is analysed on the performance
of Air pre heater. Optimum values of roughness parameters are
determined as a function of temperature rise parameter and solar
insolation. Bansal et al. (2020) used the similar setup to determine

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.01.406
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Technological Advancements in Materials Science and
Manufacturing.

Please cite this article as: G. Bansal, C. Kishore, R. Meby Selvaraj et al., Experimental determination of the effect of change in relative roughness pitch on the
thermo-hydraulic performance of air heater working with solar energy, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.01.406
G. Bansal, C. Kishore, R. Meby Selvaraj et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 1. Experimental setup [6].

the effect of change in relative roughness height on thermohy-
draulic parameters [7]. Here, all the operating parameters are also
discussed along with experimental setup [6,7].
2.1. Experimental setup
The test set-up is an open circle stream framework that has
been outlined and manufactured to lead exploratory examination
of heat exchange and fluid flow of a rectangular channel having dif-
ferent multiple V ribs as roughness component on the heated sur-
face. The channel accumulates the test duct followed with entry
and exit sections, this is also associated with a suction blower
and control valves for flow operation, a calibrated orifice plate
and instruments which were used for the measurement of differ-
ential pressure and temperature drop across the section duct [6].
The blower sucks atmospheric air through the duct, having rough-
ness created by fixing multiple v ribs on the underside of the test
plate. The flow movement in the channel executed by control
valves inline the suction flow. Mass stream rate of air was mea-
sured by method for an orifice meter on the suction side and joined
with a U tube manometer. The test section consists of a 1 mm thick
aluminum plate on its top, which is roughened at the flow passage
side and the other three sides are smooth, made of wood. The
roughened plate is supplied with the heat energy by means of elec-
tric heater fixed on its upper side.
The heater has been connected to power supply through a var-
iac to control the power supply to provide desired heat flux. J type
Copper- constantan thermocouples were used to measure the air
and absorber plate temperatures. Micro manometer is installed
in the test section of the channel to accord differential pressure
drop.
Certain variable parameters are kept in permissible range as the
Relative roughness height equals 0.019 to 0.043. It is represented
as (e/D). Range of RRP is 6 to 12 and is represented as P/e. Similarly
variable parameters Relative roughness width (1 to 10) and angle
of attack (30 to 75°) are represented as W/w and a respectively.
All the parameters are also known as system parameters. Some
of the fixed and variable operating parameters includes ambient
temperature (300 K), velocity of wind 1 m/s (taken as fixed for
analysis purpose), Temperature rise parameter (TRP) denoted as
DT/I and has unit as Km2/W where I is insulation denoted by I hav-
ing unit W/m2 and works in the variable range of 500 to 1000.
These all units are taken as per the experimental setup shown by
Gawande, V. B et al. [8]. The thermo-physical properties of air
are taken at the mean temperature of air. A code generated for cal-
culation in the MATLAB language tool and the procedure is
depicted same as done by Gawande, V. B et al. [8].
3. Results and discussions
The effect of TRP on useful heat gain, pumping power and ther-
mohydraulic parameter for different values of RRP is presented in
Figs. 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The useful heat gains and pumping
power is decreased with increase in TRP and for the lower value
of TRP the effect is more pronounced [8]. The significant increase
in the thermohydraulic parameter is observed from Fig. 3 for
higher values of TRP. This is attributed to the significant drop in

2.2. Operating parameter

In the current computational findings, various fixed parameters

and assumptions are being made in order to obtain the desired
trend of results. The type of system and their operating parameters
are been discussed below in the same section. The system and
operating parameters are been taken with fixed range and magni-
tude as are mentioned. Also the fixed and variable values of collec-
tor are been mentioned.
Several standard and constant operating parameters includes
length, width and Height of the system as 1 m, 0.3 m and
0.025 m respectively. Emittance of glass and plate are fixed and
are equal to 0.88 and 0.9 [6,7]. Fig. 2. Variation in Useful heat gain with Temperature Rise for different RRP.

2
G. Bansal, C. Kishore, R. Meby Selvaraj et al.
Fig. 3. Effect of RRP on pumping power as a function of TRP.
pumping power requirement for higher TRP or low flow Reynolds
number and thus the curve is of asymptotic nature for the thermo-
hydraulic parameter. Figs. 1-3 also shows the effect of RRP on use-
ful heat gain and pumping power for constant I = 1000 W/m2.
Useful heat gains and pumping power attain maxima correspond-
ing to RRP (P/e) value of 8 and on either side of this value, decrease
in heat transfer and pumping power has been observed. This is due
to reason that at the pitch of 8 reattachment of the fluid is under-
taken, results in the higher heat transfer rate [9,10].
Based on the computational data obtained with different fixed
and variable data, the graphs are plotted as shown in Fig. 2 to 4.
All the readings and analysis is performed in the RH value of
50%, environment average temperature 33 degrees and in the
month of March, city – Dehradun and state - Uttarakhand. The
effect of RRP on Useful heat gain as a function of temperature rise
is shown in Fig. 2. Here certain parameters like relative roughness
height (RRH) i.e. e/D = 0.043, attack angle = 60°, relative roughness
width (RRW) i.e. W/w = 6 and insulation (I) = 1000 W/m2 is kept
constant.
The result shows the continuous decrease in the value of Qu
with DT/I. The Qu values at 0.002 K-m2/W is more than 230 Watt
for all values of RRP (i.e. 6, 8, 10 and 12) and linearly decreases
to below 190 W at 0.02 K-m2/W (temperature rise function). The
maximum decrease in useful heat gain is observed for RRP = 12
where it is around 175 Watt.
Fig. 4. Effect of RRP on as a function of TRP.
3
Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
Similarly, Fig. 3, highlights the effect of RRP (RRP) on pumping
power as a function of temperature rise (DT/I). In the same setup
certain parameters like relative roughness height (RRH) i.e. e/
D = 0.043, attack angle = 60°, relative roughness width (RRW) i.e.
W/w = 6 and insulation (I) = 1000 W/m2 is kept constant. The Plot
between DT/I (X-axis) and Pm (Y-Axis) is illustrated. The fixed
parameters are legend in the plot. The result shows that the
decrease in the magnitude of temperature rise function from
0.014 K-m2/W to 0.008 K-m2/W for all values of RRP (varying from
6 to 12 with the interval of 2 units) shows almost negligible defor-
mation in the pumping power. The sudden rise in the value of
Pumping power above 15 Watt between 0.006 and 0.003 K-m2/W
of DT/I can be seen. The rise in the value of Pm is affected by the
density difference and the parametric manipulations as observed
during experimentation.
Similarly, the Thermohydraulic Performance of SAH through
RRP on the ratio of Useful heat gain (Qu) and the Pumping power
(Pm) w. r. t. TRP (DT/I) is illustrated in Fig. 4. In the same setup cer-
tain parameters like relative roughness height (RRH) i.e. e/
D = 0.043, attack angle = 60°, relative roughness width (RRW) i.e.
W/w = 6 and insulation (I) = 1000 W/m2 is kept constant. The Plot
between DT/I on X-axis and Qu/Pmon Y- Axis is plotted. The fixed
parameters are legend in the plot. The result shows that the
increase in the magnitude of temperature rise function from
0.002 K-m2/W to 0.012 K-m2/W for all values of RRP (varying from
6 to 12 with the interval of 2 units) shows the exponential rise in
the magnitude of Qu/Pm. The value is almost zero till 0.002 K-m2/W
of TRP. The variation in the useful heat gain reflects the overall
change in the magnitude of the ratio of Qu and Pm. The computa-
tional results visible are the effect of materialistic property that
affects the thermohydraulic performance of the SAH. Therefore,
optimum thermal parameters are suggested for solar applications.
4. Conclusions
Finally, the small analysis on the effect of RRP on the thermohy-
draulic performance of SAH investigated through computational
method is made and we could analyze the effect of RRP on useful
heat gain as a function of TRP, effect of RRP on pumping power
as a function of TRP andthe effect of RRP on (Qu/Pm) as a function
of TRP. From all the three trends we could conclude that the feasi-
ble range of RRP taken between 6 and 12 is justified. The values of
Useful heat gain and pumping power obtained in the figures shown
for SAH with constant thermohydraulic and geometrical parame-
ters clearly shows the feasibility of the SAH. Further, the effect of
the thermohydraulic parameters as a function of RRP can be
obtained by varying one or the other parameter and the same
setup can be helpful in several other parametric characterizations.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Gagan Bansal: Writing - original draft. Chandra Kishore: Con-
ceptualization, Formal analysis, Supervision. R. Meby Selvaraj:
Writing - review & editing. Vijay Kumar Dwivedi: Visualization,
Validation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
G. Bansal, C. Kishore, R. Meby Selvaraj et al.
Acknowledgement
All the authors would like to thank Graphic Era Deemed to be
University for providing all sorts of amenities and support in carry-
ing out the current research work.
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