Innovatively Arranged Curved-Ribbed Solar-Assisted Air Heater: Performance and Correlation Development for Heat and Flow Characteristics

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajneesh Kumar ◽  
Abhishek Singh Kashyap ◽  
Paramvir Singh ◽  
Varun Goel ◽  
Khushmeet Kumar

Abstract Solar radiation is a rich and clean source of energy. It can be collected and converted to thermal energy with the help of flat plate collectors called the solar-assisted air heater. Because of the low coefficient of heat transfer of air, the solar-assisted air heater has low thermal performance which can be improved by creating local turbulence using surface roughness on the heat transferring plate. The present investigation has been conducted to perceive the influence of the curved-ribbed element with gap on flow and heat transfer. The roughness element is defined by using five non-dimensionlized parameters, i.e., relative roughness width (W/w), relative roughness pitch (P/e), relative gap width (g/e), relative roughness height (e/D), and relative gap distance (d/x). The radius of the curvature of the curved rib-element is kept constant and the experimental measurements were done under quasi-steady state. The thermohydraulic performance parameter improved by 3.61 times the smooth flat plate solar air heater (SAH), in curved-ribbed SAH for W/w = 3, P/e = 8, g/e = 1, e/D = 0.045, and d/x = 0.65 at Reynolds number of 23,000. The generalized relation for heat transfer and flow characteristics is also being developed and the predicted Nusselt number and friction factor with the accuracy of ± 7.5% and ± 6.7%, respectively.

2014 ◽  
Vol 493 ◽  
pp. 86-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekadewi A. Handoyo ◽  
Djatmiko Ichsani ◽  
Prabowo ◽  
S. Sutardi

A solar air heater (SAH) is a simple heater using solar radiation that is useful for drying or space heating. Unfortunately, heat transfer from the absorber plate to the air inside the solar air heater is low. Some researchers reported that obstacles are able to improve the heat transfer in a flat plate solar air collector and others found that a v-corrugated absorber plate gives better heat transfer than a flat plate. Yet, no work of combining these two findings is found.This paper describes the result of experimental study on a SAH with v-corrugated absorber plate and obstacles bent vertically started from 80oto 0owith interval 10oon its bottom plate. Experiments were conducted indoor at five different Reynolds numbers (1447 Re 7237) and three different radiation intensities (430, 573, and 716 W/m2).It is found that the obstacles improve SAH performance. Both the air temperature rise and efficiency increase with inserting obstacles bent at any angle vertically. Unfortunately, the air pressure drop is increasing, too. Obstacles bent vertically at smaller angle (means more straight) give higher air temperature rise and efficiency. However, the optimum angle is found 30o. The air temperature rise and efficiency will be 5.3% lower when the obstacles bent 30oinstead of 0o, but the pressure drop will be 17.2% lower.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-256
Author(s):  
V. S. Hans ◽  
R. S. Gill ◽  
Rupinderpal Singh

This experimental study on a solar air heater having absorber plate roughened artificially by providing roughness in the form of arc ribs having gap was carried out in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India to study the effect of relative roughness pitch on thermal and thermohydraulic performance as well as to compare the performance of arc rib with gap roughened solar air heater with that of continuous arc rib roughened solar air heater. The roughness geometry parameters included relative roughness height of 0.043, angle of attack of 30 degree, relative gap position of 0.80, gap-width equal to the width of the rib and five values of relative roughness pitch ranging from 4 to 12 for flow Reynolds number range of 2000 to 16,000. The Nusselt number and friction factor were found to be more for relative roughness pitch value of 10 as compared to other values of relative roughness pitch. Thermo-hydraulic performance of solar air heaters roughened by arc with gap and continuous arc roughness geometries were found to be 1.91 times and 1.78 times respectively as compared to that of solar air heater having smooth absorber plate due to generation of turbulence in laminar sublayer region. However, improvement in thermo-hydraulic performance of solar air heater roughened by arc with gap geometry over continuous arc rib roughened solar air heater was attributed to generation of a region of turbulence on downstream side of the gap.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Chander Kant ◽  
Prashant Kumar ◽  
Ankur Gill ◽  
Dhiraj Parkash Dhiman

A solar air heater is basically a heat exchanger, which intercepts the incident solar radiation, converts it into heat and finally transfers this heat to a working fluid for an end use system. The mode of air flowing in the ducts of a solar air heater is one of the most significant aspects concerned with solar air heater which dominantly affect. A double duct parallel flow artificially roughened solar air heater with three sides of the absorber plate is investigated in the current study. Unlike the conventional model of solar air heater with only one sided roughened absorber plate, a novel solar air heater with three artificially roughened absorber plate is used so that the surface area of the absorber plate is increased which ultimately increases the rate of heat transfer. Additionally, a double duct parallel flow arrangement through inner and outer duct of solar air heater is considered order to enhance the heat transfer rate. A numerical investigation of the heat transfer and friction factor characteristics of a double duct parallel flow three sided artificially roughened solar air heater has been carried out. A commercial finite volume CFD code ANSYS FLUENT is used to simulate turbulent air flow through artificial roughened solar air heater. Governing equations of the fluid flow and heat transfer i.e. Navier-Stokes equation and energy equation are solved with RNG k-ε turbulence model. Nine different configuration of square rib are studied with relative roughness pitch (P/e = 5-10) and relative roughness height (e/D = 0.03-0.06). The Reynold number of the flow is varied from 2500 to 16000.


Author(s):  
Sumer Singh Patel ◽  
Atul Lanjewar

Abstract The present experimental study is concerned with heat transfer analysis of air flowing in solar air heater duct with a gap in V-rib with symmetrical gap and staggered ribs geometry. The investigated parameters are Reynolds number (Re) of 4000–14,000, relative roughness pitch (p/e) of 12, relative roughness height (e/Dh) of 0.043, angle of attack (α) of 60 deg, relative staggered rib pitch (p′/p) of 0.65, relative gap size (g/e) of 4, relative staggered rib size (r/e) of 4, relative gap position of additional gap in each symmetrical rib elements (d/w) of 0.65, relative gap size of additional gap in each symmetrical rib elements (g′/e) of 1, number of main gaps (Ng) of 1, 2, 3, 4, and number of additional gap (ng) varying from 1 to 5. Fourteen roughened absorber plates were tested. The maximum enhancement in Nusselt number (Nu) and friction factor (f) was 2.34 and 2.79 times that of smooth surface corresponding to the number of main gaps (Ng) of 4 with the number of additional gaps (ng) of 4. The performance of the gap in V-rib with symmetrical gap and staggered rib geometry has been compared with the existing latest V-rib geometry and smooth surface. The proposed gap in V-rib with symmetrical gap and staggered ribs geometry has a better performance than the existing latest V-rib geometry. The following correlations have been developed for heat transfer and friction factor in terms of roughness and operating parameters. Heat transfer:Nur=0.0073(Re)0.9788(Ng)0.2790(ng)0.0184exp[−0.1678(ln(Ng))2]exp[−0.0129(ln(ng))2] Friction factor:fr=0.0477(Re)−0.0678(Ng)0.5919(ng)−0.0562exp[−0.4922(ln(Ng))2]exp[−0.0487(ln(ng))2]


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheetal Kumar Jain ◽  
Ghanshyam Das Agrawal ◽  
Rohit Misra ◽  
Prateek Verma ◽  
Sanjay Rathore ◽  
...  

Large-scale adaptation of solar air heating in industries and agro-processing will lead to clean energy processing as well as reducing the production cost for these industries. The solar air heater uses the principle of the greenhouse effect to heat air through the collected heat in the absorber. Among the various techniques employed by the researchers to augment heat transfer, the addition of artificial roughness elements/fins/corrugations on the heated surface is the promising one for heat transfer augmentation. In the present work, the effect of broken inclined ribs with rectangular cross-section on heat transfer and friction characteristics of the equilateral triangular passage duct has been analyzed using computational fluid dynamics. The effect of roughness parameters, viz., relative gap position and relative gap width, is being investigated for the Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 4000 to 18,000. The values of relative gap position (d/W) and relative gap width (g/e) are varied from 0.16 to 0.67 and 0.5 to 2, respectively, while a constant heat flux is supplied on the absorber side, other surfaces being insulated. The Nusselt number increased up to 2.16 times by using broken ribs than that of the smooth duct at d/W = 0.25 and g/e = 1.


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