Experimental Investigation of Convective Cells Generated by Side Walls in Solar Ponds Using Various Salts

This paper reports an experimental investigation to study the effect of various parameters that might affect the generation of convective cells in solar ponds with sloping walls. The parameters studied include the variation of the angles of the walls, types of salt used, and the surface roughness of the sloping wall. Four angles were used: 90, 60, 45 and 30, as well as four different types of salts: sodium chloride, potassium chloride, ammonium Sulphate, and carnalite. It was found that increasing the sloping angle of the heated wall of the pond tends to decrease the activity of the convective cells. Furthermore, the growth rate of the convective cells is very much dependent on the type of salt. The results indicate that carnalite and ammonium sulphate tend to have low growth rates of convective cells compared with sodium chloride and potassium chloride. Finally, the surface roughness of the heated wall tends to reduce the activity of the convective cells.