Publication

Abstract : Solar flat plate collectors are one of the most popular and cost effective ways of trapping the sun’s heat energy for domestic as well as industrial applications. They are relatively cheap, simple in design and highly useful in tropical climatic conditions. Over a period of time various new designs for the solar flat plate collector have come up leading to more efficient collector setups. This paper evaluates the results of an experimental investigation on the performance of a solar flat plate collector when the conventional absorber plate profile is replaced with a concave-ridged profile. It is known theoretically that for the same aperture area the concave-ridged profile will provide larger surface area for the collection of heat energy from incoming solar radiation (insolation) as compared to the conventional flat profile. Further the concave-ridged profile has a larger shape factor with respect to itself than a conventional profile which leads to better entrapment of heat received from solar radiation. A scaled down model of a commercial solar flat plate collector was fabricated and experiments were conducted using both of the above mentioned profiles at the same geographical coordinates. The results of the experimental studies as well as the comparison of collector efficiencies are presented. Thermal analysisof the concave-ridged profile using ANSYS 14.5 was also done in order to study the distribution of temperatures and thermal fluxes within the profile.