The effect of partitioning single pass mesh wire packed bed solar air heater

Abstract

Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Turkey, 19-21 July, 2010.Two single pass Solar air heaters (SAHs) having two and six fins (partitions) respectively were constructed and experimentally investigated The aim of the partitions is to increase the airflow path length. The path followed by the working fluid was increased due to increase in the number of partitions. Wire mesh layers were used within the partitions instead of an absorber plate. The effect of thermal partition on the thermal efficiency was investigated experimentally. The range of mass flow rate through the collectors is varied from 0.12 to 0.36 kg/s. Thermal efficiencies obtained for the two and six partitions were 80.6% and 83.1% respectively with a mass flow rate of 0.36 kg/s in each case. The maximum temperature differences obtained for the two and six partitions were 48.2 °C and 58.4 °C respectively with a mass flow rate of 0.12 kg/s in each case.