M. Keshtkar, et al.

Fig. 10. Productivity of the basin solar still at different wind velocities: (a) Hourly (b) Cumulative.

computed by Eq. (8) as a function of temperature and pressure at each

cell (Ghiaasiaan, 2011). Moreover, enthalpies of evaporation and con- (8)
densation are calculated at water and glass temperatures, respectively
according to Eq. (9) (Rahbar and Esfahani, 2013).

(9)

In the above equations, and are the condensation and eva-

poration rates per unit area on the glass and water surfaces; and
(5) are the enthalpies of condensation and evaporation at glass and
water temperatures; and are the areas of glass and water; and ,
and are the glass, water, and air volumes, respectively.
(6) Furthermore, is the water vapor mass fraction; and are the
lengths of glass and water as shown in Fig. 1. Two coordinate systems
are considered where and are the vertical coordinates perpendi-
cular to the water and glass surfaces, respectively.
(7)
M. Keshtkar, et al.

Fig. 12. Productivity of the basin solar still at different water depths: (a) Hourly (b) Cumulative.

2.2.4. DO radiation eddy mass diffusivity term ( ) is obtained according to the k-ε RNG
DO radiative transfer equation (ANSYS Fluent Documentation, turbulence model:
2016) is solved in order to consider absorption of solar irradiance in
solar still components as well as radiative heat transfer between sur-
faces. This model allows defining semi-transparent walls like glass (11)
cover.

(12)

(10)
where , , and are the radiation intensity, absorption coefficient, and
refractive index, respectively and is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
(5.67e−8 W/m2 K4). The air-water vapor mixture is considered to be a
nonparticipating medium in this modeling.
where is the diffusive flux. Eq. (12) describes Fick’s law that states
diffusive flux is proportional to the gradient of water vapor mass frac-
tion and in the reverse direction. After obtaining the water vapor mass
fraction distribution in the solar still domain, the hourly produced fresh
water is calculated by integrating Eq. (6) for each hour.

2.2.5. Species transport

Distribution of water vapor in the air gap is obtained by solving the (13)
species transport equation (Eqs. (11) and (12)) for water vapor. The
M. Keshtkar, et al.

Fig. 14. Productivity of the basin solar still at different water surface to glass cover distances: (a) Hourly (b) Cumulative.

2.2.6. Turbulence modeling equations described in Section 2.2.

The k-ε RNG method is used for turbulence modeling in the present
study. The kinetic energy of turbulence and dissipation rate are com- 2.3.1. Momentum boundary conditions
puted by solving Eqs. (14) and (15). The turbulent Schmidt number is
considered to be 0.85. More information on details of the terms and
• No-slip boundary condition is used for all the walls of the solar still.
constants of these equations can be found in ANSYS Fluent
Documentation (2016).
• Zero shear stress is applied on the water interface with air for free
surface modeling.

(14) 2.3.2. Thermal boundary conditions

(15)
• Side and bottom walls are considered to be adiabatic due to the
insulation in the experiment (Feilizadeh et al., 2017).

2.3. Boundary and initial conditions (16)

The appropriate boundary conditions are set at each time step on

different faces of solar still as shown in Fig. 2 to solve the governing (17)
M. Keshtkar, et al.

Fig. 15. Contours of (a) Temperature (b) Velocity (c) Water vapor mass fraction at different glass thicknesses at 3 PM.

• Coupled boundary condition is used on the evaporation and con-

densation surfaces to account for energy conservation between two (19)
neighboring bodies.
• Heat loss from the glass surface to the ambient through convection
(18) and radiation is considered by Eq. (20).

(20)
M. Keshtkar, et al.

Fig. 16. Productivity of the basin solar still at different glass thicknesses: (a) Hourly (b) Cumulative.

where is mixed convection heat transfer coefficient which is com- Forced convection heat transfer coefficient on the inclined glass
puted based on free and forced convection heat transfer coefficients surface is calculated through the following expressions (Ghiaasiaan,
(Bergman et al., 2011). 2011):

(21)

Free convection heat transfer coefficient on the inclined glass sur- (25)
face is calculated by the following equations (Ghiaasiaan, 2011):

(22) (26)

(23) (27)

(28)

The sky temperature for computing heat loss through radiation is

(24)
calculated by Eq. (29) (Agrawal et al., 2017).