SOLAR ENERGY COLLECTORS

SOLAR COLLECTORS:

❖ Collector is a device which absorbs the incoming solar

radiation, converts it into heat, and transfers this heat to
a fluid (usually air, water, or oil) flowing through the
collector.
 COLLECTORS

Collecting Mounting Fluids

Flat (or) Concentric

Non (or) Stationary Adjustable Gas (or) Air
concentric Focussing
 Flat or Non concentric type collector

 Flat-plate collectors, developed by

Hottel and Whillier in the 1950s, are
the most common type of solar collector
which are widely used for domestic
household hot-water heating , air
heating

 Temperature can be upto 900

 In the Non-concentrating type, the

collector area is the same as the
absorber area.
 Flat (or)
Non
concentric

Fluid Type Air Type

 FLUID TYPE : Heat Transfer medium is water or any other liquid

 AIR TYPE : Heat Transfer medium is air or gas.

 A typical diagrams of
“ Flat plate solar thermal
collectors”
Components of Flat plate collector

GLAZING
ABSORBER

HEADERS

INSULATION

CONTAINER

** These can absorb both direct and diffused beam

radiations
 GLAZING:
o Made of one or more covers of transparent material like glass or plastic..

o It is used to reduce convective and radiative heat losses from the absorber.

o It is opaque to the infrared radiations.

ABSORBER :
o It is usually made of copper or steel metal.

o The surface is covered with a thin coating of primer and then flat black paint of high absorptance huge

paint may increase the resistance to heat tranfer

o Coating is applied on the surface to maximize the absorptance of solar energy and minimizes the

radiation emitted by plate.

TUBES OR HEADERS :
o A tube that is attached to absorber or sometimes it is a part of absorber plate.

o If the working fluid is air , the flow passage should be below the absorber plate to minimize heat losses.
 Insulation:
❖ These are some materials such as fiberglass and they are placed at the back and sides of

the collector to reduce heat losses. eg. wool, fiber etc...

Container :
❖ Which encloses the other components together and protects from the weather.
Flat plate collectors
Flat plate collector Fluid Type
 Working Principle

Sunlight passes through the glazing

and strikes the absorber plate, which
heats up, and solar energy is
converted into heat energy.

This the heat is transferred to the

fluid passing through pipes attached
to the absorber plate by means of
convective heat transfer.
?
 Air Type Flat plate collectors

 Used commonly for space heating and agricultural

heating applications.

A Typical
Flat plate collector
Solar air heater
Collectors with porus absorbers
 Applications Advantages

Air collectors Flat Plate collectors

Heating Buildings
Both Beam and Diffuse radiations
Drying Agricultural Products
orientation need not be towards sun
Heating Green houses.
little maintaince
Heat source for heat engines.
simplier than concentric plate type
 Thermal Analysis of Flat Plate Collectors
Thermal Analysis of Flat Plate Collectors
 If I is the intensity of solar radiation, in W/m2 , incident on the aperture plane of the
solar collector having a collector surface area of A, in m2

 Then the amount of solar radiation received by the collector is :

 However, as it is shown Figure 2, a part of this radiation is reflected back to the sky,
another component is absorbed by the glazing and the rest is transmitted through the
glazing and reaches the absorber plate as short wave radiation.

 Therefore the conversion factor indicates the percentage of the solar rays penetrating
the transparent cover of the collector (transmission) and the percentage being
absorbed.

 Basically, it is the product of the rate of transmission of the cover and the absorption
rate of the absorber and is given by
Thermal Analysis of Flat Plate Collectors
 As the collector absorbs heat its temperature is getting higher than that of
the surrounding and heat is lost to the atmosphere by convection and
radiation.

 The rate of heat loss (Qo) depends on the collector overall heat loss
coefficient (UL) and the collector temperature.
Thermal Analysis of Flat Plate Collectors

Under steady state conditions

 The rate of useful energy extracted by the collector (Qu), expressed as

It is also known that the rate of extraction of heat from the collector may be
measured by means of the amount of heat carried away in the fluid passed
through it, that is:
Thermal Analysis of Flat Plate Collectors
 It is convenient to define a quantity that relates the actual useful energy
gain of a collector to the useful gain if the whole collector surface were at
the fluid inlet temperature. This quantity is known as “the collector heat
removal factor (FR)” and is expressed as:
Concentric type collector :
simple concentric collector
\
 Types of concentric collectors
 a) Flat plate collector with adjustable mirrors

 b) Compounded parabolic collector

 c) Cylindrical parabolic collector

 d) Mirror strip reflector (or) Moving reflector with fixed concentrator

 e) Fresnel lens collector

 f) Parabolic trough collector

Cylindrical parabolic trough collector

 Beam radiation is reflected from the

number of individual mirrors called
heliostats to the central receiver at the top.

 Upto 20000C
 Fresnel Lens Collector

It is flat on one side and has fine

longitudinal grooves on the
other

The angles of these grooves are

such that the radiation is
brought to the focus

Lens are made of plastic sheets.

Used upto 4000C

Parabolic trough collector

 solar radiation coming in a

particular direction is collected
and is collected on the focus of
the parabola
Thermal Analysis of concentrate collectors

 Under the steady state conditions we have :

 Equation is written assuming that the contribution of diffuse beam

radiations are negligible
 And Q1 the overall loss coefficient can be given as :
 CONCLUSION
Long lasting

Cheaper than other water heating systems.

However,they requires large areas

Also solar energy is free

If we do not include the initial cost for installation and the maintenance.

Finally; besides these we should remember by using solar energy we can

protect nature
The End