International Journal of Ambient Energy

ISSN: 0143-0750 (Print) 2162-8246 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/taen20

ANSYS CFD and experimental comparison of

various parameters of a solar still

Hitesh N. Panchal & Nikunj Patel

To cite this article: Hitesh N. Panchal & Nikunj Patel (2018) ANSYS CFD and experimental
comparison of various parameters of a solar still, International Journal of Ambient Energy,
39:6, 551-557, DOI: 10.1080/01430750.2017.1318785

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01430750.2017.1318785

Published online: 12 May 2017.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 580

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 35 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=taen20
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY, 2018
VOL. 39, NO. 6, 551–557
https://doi.org/10.1080/01430750.2017.1318785

ANSYS CFD and experimental comparison of various parameters of a solar still

Hitesh N. Panchala and Nikunj Patelb
a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Patan, Gujarat, India; b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Smt.S.R.
Patel Engineering College, Unjha, Gujarat, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

A solar still is a very simple device to convert brackish water into drinkable water. It depends on various Received 9 January 2017
parameters like inner glass cover temperature, outer glass cover temperature, vapour temperature, basin Accepted 4 March 2017
water temperature, etc. All such parameters are directly proportional to the distillate output. Hence, to com- KEYWORDS
pare parameters, a model is developed in ANSYS CFD. The simulation results of ANSYS CFD are compared Solar still; ANSYS CFD;
with actual experimental results. Results show that there was good agreement with experimental results. distillate output; cumulative
Hourly distillate output and cumulative distillate output were also obtained by simulation results and good distillate output
agreement was found with experimental results. At last, it is obvious that ANSYS CFD simulation results are
a very important tool to analyse the purpose of a solar still.

1. Introduction All of the above research accomplished increasing or improv-

Due to the present situation of water crisis, saline water desalina-
tion technology will become more popular to face this problem.
Many countries in the world face a very high intensity of solar
radiation; hence in such countries, the problem of potable water
could be somewhat reduced using a solar still. A solar still is a
very popular technology for converting saline water into potable
water. It is very easy to fabricate by locally available materials and
it requires very low maintenance.
Many researchers have worked on the solar still to improve its
performance. Proper inclination as well as direction of the cover
plate could increase distillate output of a solar still. Basin water
depth has a significant effect on a solar still. Research shows
that water coming out from a solar still depends on the amount
of water going into the basin of the solar still (Panchal 2010,
2011, 2016a, 2016b; Panchal et al. 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2014;
Panchal and Shah 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b, 2013a, 2013b,
2013c, 2013d, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2015; Panchal and Patel
2016). Some energy storing materials can store a good amount
of solar energy and increase temperature. Hence rubber mat,
charcoal could be used to increase the temperature of water and
increase distillate output of a solar still (Tripathi and Tiwari 2005;
Phadatare and Verma 2007). There are also some black materi-
als which are used in the solar still to store the extra solar energy
during the sunny hours (Okeke, Egarievwe, and Animalu 1990;
Tiris, Tiris, and Ture 1996; Akash et al. 1998; Tripathi and Tiwari
2006). Use of a flat plate collector coupled with a solar still could
improve the productivity of the solar still (Boukar and Harmim
2001, 2004; Naim and Abd El Kawi 2002). Another good approach
to increase distillate output of a solar still is the use of various
dyes (Pandey 1983; Dutt et al. 1989).
ing distillate output from a conventional solar still. Distillate
output depends on inner glass temperature, outer glass cover
temperature, basin water temperature and vapour temperature.
In the current work, validation of such temperatures is attained
by a software approach called ANSYS CFD. At last, daily distillate
output and cumulative distillate output of an actual solar still are
also compared with simulation of ANSYS CFD.
2. Experimental set-up
Figure 1 illustrates the picture taken in climate conditons of
Patan or the experiments of solar still. Figure 2 shows line dia-
gram of solar still. It has an effective basin area of 1 square
metre (Panchal 2010, 2011; Panchal et al. 2010, 2011a, 2011b)
with inclination of glass cover of 23 degrees to accommodate
the latitude of Patan to receive solar radiation normal to the
plane of the glass cover. The lowermost superficial of still was
coated black colour of 92% absorptivity to obtain extreme sun
rays for enhancement of absorption. To circumvent falling of
basin water to the exterior of the still, the inferior perpendicular
lateral elevation of the still was kept at 40 cm. The bottom-most
portion of the still was insulated by an easily available maerial,
glass fibre, to reinforce the plastic of 5 cm thickness. For the
collection of output from the solar still, a measuring jar was
used in the experiment. Here, all experiments were conducted
under clear sky conditions during the morning from 10 am to
05 pm and the inner, outer, vapour temperatures and insola-
tion and distillate output of the solar still were measured. Accu-
racies and error of measuring instruments and temperature-
depenent properties have been taken from literature (Panchal
et al. 2010).

CONTACT Hitesh N. Panchal engineerhitesh2000@gmail.com

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

552 H. N. PANCHAL AND N. PATEL

Figure 1. Experimental set-up.

Figure 3. Model of a solar still with actual dimensions made in the ANSYS Work-
bench 11.

Figure 2. Line diagram of a solar still.

3. Result and discussion

3.1. Experimental results
Experiments with a single slope and single basin solar still was
carried out in the month of August 2011. Here, four thermo-
couples were used to measure temperature at various points of
the solar still. Solar insolation was taken as a variable param-
eter in this experiment and was measured after an interval of
1 h and various temperatures were also measured. Hence, Table
1 shows the result of insolation, inner glass cover tempera-
ture, outer glass cover temperature, basin water temperature,
vapour temperature, distillate output, hourly distillate output Figure 4. Application of the fluid domain applied to the model made in ANSYS
and cumulative distillate output. CFD 11.

Table 1. Results of eight hours of working of the solar still.

Solar insolation Outer glass cover temp. Basin water Vapour temperature Inner glass cover temp. Distillate Cumulative distillate
Sr. No. Time (h) I(t) (T co ) °C temp. (T w ) °C (°C) (T ci ) °C output (Litre) output (Litre)
1 10:00 400 39 37 30 22 0.0 0.0
2 11:00 463 47 43.2 35.8 30.2 0.350 0.350
3 12:00 700 50 47.8 40.2 35 0.370 0.720
4 13:00 680 52.5 50.2 47.8 43.6 0.500 1.22
5 14:00 700 51.2 48.6 52.8 46.9 0.570 1.79
6 15:00 600 47.2 45 50 45 0.710 2.50
7 16:00 420 45 41.7 40.5 42 0.456 3.21
8 17:00 150 43 40.6 34.7 39.7 0.320 3.53

Figure 5. Application of meshing for the model made in ANSYS CFD 11.
Figure 6. Application of total energy concept applied to the model made in ANSYS
CFD 11.
3.2. ANSYS CFD results
For simulation of a solar still, a three-dimensional, two-phase
model is required. Here, simulation analysis was carried out
using ANSYS CFD 11. Quasi-steady-state conditions are used in
this work. First, a model of a solar still was made as per the
actual dimensions of an experimental solar still in ANSYS work-
bench 11, and then an unstructured tetrahedral mesh was used.
The computation time per simulation required to reach quasi-
steady-state conditions was about 4–12 h according to the com-
puter used for CFD simulations. Building model geometry and
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY 553
Figure 7. Fluid–solid interface with walls of the model made in ANSYS CFD 11.
Figure 8. Adiabatic wall concept applied to the side walls and basin model and
inserting thermocouple into the basin of the model made in ANSYS CFD 11.
its meshing were done using ANSYS Workbench 11. As sensi-
tivity needs to be good, the required number of nodes have
been used. The procedure for making a model in ANSYS Work-
bench 11 to simulate the results of the software is shown in
Figures 3–14.
3.3. Comparison of experimental and simulation results
Figure 13 shows the simulation result of a solar still, which
gives simulation result values to be compared with experimen-
tal results. Figure 15 shows a comparison of outer glass cover
554 H. N. PANCHAL AND N. PATEL
Figure 9. Define inlet side of pouring brackish water inside model with attaching
thermocouple made in ANSYS CFD 11.
Figure 10. Inserting the inner and outer glass covers with attaching
thermocouple.
temperature from experimental results and simulation results.
It shows that, temperature of the outer glass cover increases
from early morning to 3 pm and afterwards due to less thermal
energy from the sun, it decreases. It also shows good agreement
between experimental results and simulation results. Figure 16
shows a comparison of vapour temperature from experimental
results and simulation results. The thermal energy from the sun
that is incident on the glass cover increases the temperature of
a layer of water, which gives rise to vapour. Hence, measure-
ment of vapour temperature is important. It also increases from
Figure 11. Sealing the gap between the glass cover and the top of thebasin to
prevent losses and make the gap adiabatic.
Figure 12. Application of solar intensity in watt per metre Square for simulation
purpose of model made in ANSYS CFD 11.
morning to 3 pm due to gradual increase in the availability of
the sun’s rays, and then decreases. These results also show good
agreement between simulation results and experimental results.
The basin of the solar still should always contain a requisite quan-
tity of water; if the quantity of water lessens due to evaporation
of water by solar energy, then a float valve operates and sup-
plies the required water to maintain a pre-determined depth of

Figure 13. Simulation results of the applied solar intensity showing the water
vapour contours.
Figure 14. Side view of the water vapour contour of the model made In ANSYS
CFD.
water level inside the solar still. In this experiment, 3 cm depth is
taken as the level of water to be maintained. Figure 17 shows
a comparison of experimental results and simulation results.
Results show good agreement with each other. In the solar still,
the vapour produced on evaporation floats upwards due to its
low density. But it condenses and gets converted into water
droplets on contact with the cool surface of the inner glass
cover. Due to the angle of slope of the solar still, all droplets
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY 555
Figure 15. Comparison of experimental and simulation results of the outer glass
cover temperature of the solar still.
Figure 16. Comparison of experimental and simulation results of the vapour tem-
perature of the solar still.
move downwards and collect in the distillate channel to pro-
duce fresh water. If the inner glass cover temperature increases
due to some reasons, then the vapour will not condense and
the quantity of production of hourly distillate output will be low-
ered. Hence, the temperature of the inner glass cover should be
sufficiently low. Figure 18 shows a comparison of experimental
results and simulation results of inner glass cover temperature
of the solar still. The results are in good agreement with each
other.
Hourly distillate output is a major output of a solar still. If
it increases, then automatically the efficiency of the solar still
increases. Hence it is a very important parameter to be consid-
ered while designing a solar still. Many scientists have worked
556 H. N. PANCHAL AND N. PATEL

Figure 17. Comparison of experimental and simulation results of the basin water
temperature of the solar still.

Figure 20. Comparison of experimental and simulation results of the cumulative

distillate output of the solar still.

to improve the efficiency of solar stills (Panchal and Shah 2011a,

2011b). Figure 19 shows a comparison of experimental and sim-
ulation results of hourly distillate output of a solar still and
Figure 20 shows a comparison of experimental and simulation
results of cumulative distillate output of a solar still. Both show
good agreement of experimental and simulation results.

Figure 18. Comparison of experimental and simulation results of the inner glass
cover temperature of the solar still.
4. Conclusion
In a solar still, condensation as well as evaporation phenomena
are required to produce distillate output. Hence, condensation
as well as evaporation processes were simulated in ANSYS CFD
by making models of the actual dimensions of an experimen-
tal solar still. First, from an experiment with actual solar stills,
results of different temperatures, distillate outputs and cumula-
tive outputs obtained in the climate conditions of Mehsana and
simulation results with ANSYS CFD work were compared. Simu-
lation results were found to be relatively similar to experimental
results. Hence, it is obvious that, predicting the performance of a
solar still is simple by use of the ANSYS CFD software and difficult
situations in Solar still, ANSYS CFD will give satisfactory work.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

References
Akash, B. A., M. S. Mohsen, O. Osta, and Y. Elayan. 1998. “Experimental Eval-
uation of a Single-Basin Solar Still Using Different Absorbing Materials.”
Renewable Energy 14: 307–310.
Boukar, M., and A. Harmim. 2001. “Effect of Climatic Conditions on the Per-
formance of a Simple Basin Solar Still: A Comparative Study.” Desalination
137: 15–22.
Boukar, M., and A. Harmim. 2004. “Parametric Study of a Vertical Solar Still
Under Desert Climatic Conditions.” Desalination 168: 21–28.
Dutt, D. K., A. Kumar, J. D. Anand, and G. N. Tiwari. 1989. “Performance
Figure 19. Comparison of experimental and simulation results of the hourly distil-
late output of the solar still. of a Double-Basin Solar Still in the Presence of Dye.” Applied Energy 32:
207–223.

Naim, Mona M., and Mervat A. Abd El Kawi. 2002. “Non-Conventional Solar
Stills Part 1. Non-Conventional Solar Stills with Charcoal Particles as
Absorber Medium.” Desalination 153: 55–64.
Okeke, C. E., S. U. Egarievwe, and A. O. Animalu. 1990. “Effects of Coal and
Charcoal on Solar-Still Performance.” Energy 15 (11): 1071–1073.
Panchal, Hitesh. 2010. “Experimental Analysis of Different Absorber Plates on
Performance of Double Slope Solar Still.” International Journal of Engineer-
ing Science and Technology 2 (11): 6626–6629.
Panchal, Hitesh. 2011. “Experimental Investigation of Varying Parameters
Affecting on Double Slope Single Basin Solar Still.” International Journal
of Advances in Engineering Sciences 2 (1): 17–21.
Panchal, Hitesh. 2016a. “Performance Investigation on Variations of Glass
Cover Thickness on Solar Still: Experimental and Theoretical Analysis.”
Technology and Economics of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy 1 (4):
1–7.
Panchal, Hitesh. 2016b. “Use of Thermal Energy Storage Materials for
Enhancement in Distillate Output of Solar Still: A Review.” Renewable and
Sustainable Energy Reviews 61: 86–96.
Panchal, Hitesh, Manish Doshi, Prakash Chavda, and Ranvirgiri Goswami.
2010. “Effect of Cow Dung Cakes Inside Basin on Heat Transfer Coefficients
and Productivity of Single Basin Single Slope Solar Still.” International
Journal of Applied Engineering Research, Dindigul 1 (4): 675–690.
Panchal, Hitesh, Manish Doshi, Keyursinh Thakor, and Anup Patel. 2011a.
“Experimental Investigation on Coupling Evacuated Glass Tube Collector
on Single Slope Single Basin Solar Still Productivity.” International Journal
of Mechanical Engineering & Technology 1: 1–9.
Panchal, Hitesh, Mitesh I. Patel, Bakul Patel, Ranvirgiri Goswami, and Manish
Doshi. 2011b. “A Comparative Analysis of Single Slope Solar Still Coupled
with Flat Plate Collector and Passive Solar Still.” IJRRAS 7 (2): 111–116.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Sanjay Patel. 2016. “Effect of Various Parameters on Aug-
mentation of Distillate Output of Solar Still: A Review.” Technology and
Economics of Smart Grids and Sustainable Energy 1 (4): 1–8.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2011a. “Char Performance Analysis of Dif-
ferent Energy Absorbing Plates on Solar Stills.” Iranica Journal of Energy &
Environment 2 (4): 297–301.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2011b. “Modelling and Verification of Sin-
gle Slope Solar Still Using ANSYS-CFX.” International Journal of Energy and
Environment 2 (6): 985–998.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2012a. “Effect of Varying Glass Cover
Thickness on Performance of Solar Still: In a Winter Climate Conditions.”
International Journal of Renewable Energy Research 1 (4): 212–223.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2012b. “Investigation on Solar Stills Hav-
ing Floating Plates.” International Journal of Energy and Environmental
Engineering 3 (1): 8.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY 557
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2013a. “Experimental and ANSYS CFD Sim-
ulation Analysis of Hemispherical Solar Still.” IIRE International Journal of
Renewable Energy 8 (1): 1–14.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2013b. “Modeling and Verification of Hemi-
spherical Solar Still Using ANSYS CFD.” International Journal of Energy and
Environment 4 (3): 427–440.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2013c. “Performance Improvement of Solar
Stills via Experimental Investigation.” International Journal of Advanced
Design and Manufacturing Technology 5 (5): 19–23.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2013d. “Performance Analysis of Dou-
ble Basin Solar Still with Evacuated Tubes.” Applied Solar Energy 49 (3):
174–179.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2014a. “Improvement of Solar Still Pro-
ductivity by Energy Absorbing Plates.” Journal of Renewable Energy and
Environment 1 (1): 1–7.
Panchal, Hitesh N., and Pravin K. Shah. 2014b. “Enhancement of Distillate
Output of Double Basin Solar Still With Vacuum Tubes.” Frontiers in Energy
8 (1): 101–109.
Panchal, Hitesh, and Pravin Shah. 2014c. “Investigation on Performance Anal-
ysis of Novel Design of Vacuum Tube-Assisted Double Basin Solar Still:
An Experimental Approach.” International Journal of Ambient Energy 37:
220–226. doi:10.1080/01430750.2014.924435.
Panchal, Hitesh N., and Pravin K. Shah. 2015. “Enhancement of Upper
Basin Distillate Output by Attachment of Vacuum Tubes with Double-
Basin Solar Still.” Desalination and Water Treatment 55 (3): 587–595.
doi:10.1080/19443994.2014.913997.
Panchal, Hitesh N., Nishant S. Thakar, and Vishal N. Thakkar. 2014. “Per-
formance Analysis of Various Parameters on Glass Cover of Solar Dis-
tillerExperimental Study.” International Journal of Advance Engineering
and Research Development 1 (3): 1–12.
Pandey, G. 1983. “Effect of dye on the Performance of a Double Basin Solars
Till.” Energy 7: 327–332.
Phadatare, M. K., and S. K. Verma. 2007. “Influence of Water Depth on Inter-
nal Heat and Mass Transfer in a Plastic Solar Solar Still.” Desalination 217:
267–275.
Tiris, C., M. Tiris, and I. E. Ture. 1996. “Improvement of Basin Type Solar
Still Performance: Use of Various Absorber Materials and Solar Collector
Integration.” Renewable Energy 9: 758–761.
Tripathi, Rajesh, and G. N. Tiwari. 2005. “Effect of Water Depth on Internal
Heat and Mass Transfer for Active Solar Distillation.” Desalination 173:
187–200.
Tripathi, Rajesh, and G. N. Tiwari. 2006. “Thermal Modeling of Passive and
Active Solar Stills for Different Depths of Water by Using the Concept of
Solar Fraction.” Solar Energy 80: 956–967.