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Transient Numerical Model for Natural Convection Flow in Flat Plate Solar Collector

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Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Advances in Energy Research

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Energy ((SPE))

Abstract

Natural convection flow in the annulus air gap of a flat plate solar collector constitutes the majority of heat losses in the solar collector. Here we report the development of a numerical model to simulate the transient behaviour of natural convection flow in the solar collector. The model is validated against benchmark results available in the literature, i.e. Vahl Davis et al. [17] and Samdarshi et al. [18]. An error of less than 13% is observed for the top heat loss coefficient parameter of flat plate solar collector in comparison with these benchmark results. We report the natural convection flow for a particular case to evaluate the ability of the transient model to simulate the natural convection flow. Various structural and material parameters of the solar collector could be optimized using this transient model

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Abbreviations

Ar:

Aspect ratio (L/H)

Bi:

Biot number

C p :

Specific heat capacity

g :

Gravitational force

Gr:

Grashof number

h :

Convective heat transfer coefficient

H :

Height of respective domain

L :

Length of enclosure

K :

Thermal conductivity

K Φ :

Diffusion coefficient

n :

Time step

N :

Number of tubes

Nu:

Nusselt number

p :

Pressure

Pr:

Prandtl number

q”:

Heat flux (W/m2)

Q :

Non-dimensional Heat flux

R :

Residual

Ra:

Rayleigh number

S Φ :

Transport equation source term

t :

Time

T :

Temperature

\( \vec{u} \) :

Velocity vector

u, v:

Velocity components

\( \vec{U} \) :

Non-dimensional velocity

U, V:

Non-dimensional velocity components

x, y:

Coordinates

X, Y:

Non-dimensional coordinates

α :

Thermal diffusivity

β :

Thermal expansion coefficient

γ :

Angle of inclination of enclosure

ε :

Numerical tolerance limit

θ :

Non-dimensional temperature

ν :

Kinematic viscosity

ρ :

Density

τ :

Non-dimensional time

ψ :

Stream function

Ψ:

Non-dimensional stream function

ω :

Vorticity

Ω:

Non-dimensional vorticity

Φ:

General conservation variable

∇2:

Laplacian operator

\( \Theta \) :

Order of discretization

o :

Reference condition

amb:

Ambient

f :

Fluid

fp :

Fluid to plate

fg :

Fluid to glass

g :

Glass

p :

Plate

S :

Solar

t :

Tube

w :

Water

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, 247667, India

    Nagesh B. Balam & Tabish Alam

  2. Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, 247667, India

    Akhilesh Gupta

Authors
  1. Nagesh B. Balam
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  2. Tabish Alam
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  3. Akhilesh Gupta
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Correspondence to Nagesh B. Balam .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Manaswita Bose

  2. Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Anish Modi

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Balam, N.B., Alam, T., Gupta, A. (2021). Transient Numerical Model for Natural Convection Flow in Flat Plate Solar Collector. In: Bose, M., Modi, A. (eds) Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Advances in Energy Research. Springer Proceedings in Energy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5955-6_36

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5955-6_36

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-5954-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-5955-6

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