Effects of geometric configuration on performance of a solar air heater

Abstract

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.