Papers presented to the 11th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 20-23 July 2015.
The objective of this study is to investigate the thermalhydraulic
performance of a solar air heater (SAH) using threedimensional
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)
analysis. The performance evaluation of SAH is examined to
find out the optimum shape of obstacles mounted on the
absorber plate. Four different obstacle shapes and three
configurations were tested to determine the performance of
SAH. The effect of the obstacle shape and configuration on
heat transfer, friction factor and performance enhancement was
investigated covering different range of Reynolds number. The
maximum heat transfer augmentation by using an obstacle
mounted SAH was 3 times higher compared with the smooth
duct under similar geometrical and flow condition.
Temperature and velocity contours are analysed in order to
have better insight of SAH.
