Experiment and numerical simulation of a seawater solar pond

Abstract

In this work, experimental and theoretical investigation of temperature distribution in a solar pond is conducted, which particularly includes the part of the diffusive radiation on the shaded area. A small scale rectangular solar pond with the area of 2.3×2.8m2 and depth of 0.8m was built on seaside of Dalian. Transient heat transfer problem of the pond has been numerically solved by a 2D transient model. The results indicate that the temperature in this small scale solar pond can increase to a high level in short time during one week experiments, which get the daily maximum temperature of nearly 45°C on September. The experimental results suggest that the small-scale solar pond is better to operate in summer season, and the simulated results also convey us such conclusion.