Solar Air Collectors

In this thesis, an experimental and numerical study has been done for testing the thermal performance of air solar heaters. The main purpose of this present work is to increase the efficiency and compare between the different designs of air solar collectors. Five types of solar air collectors have been designed and tested. These collectors were conventional channel with a smooth absorber plate (model I), dual channel with a smooth absorber plate (model II), perforating “V” corrugated absorber plate (model III), internal attached wire mesh (model Ⅳ), and absorber sheet of transparent honeycomb, (model Ⅴ). The outdoor test was conducted in the period from December (2016) to February (2017) from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM clear days. Experimental results show that the highest outlet air temperature was (39.7°C) model (III), the lowest outlet air temperature was (28.4°C) model (I). The best model which gives higher thermal efficiency was (72.2 %) experimentally model (III) and (66.4 %) numerically by Ansys Fluent program, than other models (40.2 %) model (I), (51.6 %) model (II), (65.1 %) model (Ⅳ) and (59.7 %) model (Ⅴ).