A Comparative Analysis of Ribs and Cans Type Solar Air Heater

Abstract

India is a country that has an abundant amount of solar energy. Air Heating is a famous application of solar energy. The heated air can be used in industry in number of application like crop drying, wood seasoning and in refinery. The Solar Air Heater is the device which is used for heating the air with the help of solar energy. In this study, the two designs of solar air heatesr analyzed and compared. The first design consists of triangular fins produced over absorber plate and second one has the tin can pipes fixed over the absorber plate. The comparison of both solar heaters was made based on Heat transfer rate, efficiency, Nusselt number, friction factor and pressure drop. The average enhancement in temperature difference is found 32.77 °C and 30.18 °C in October and 22.64 °C and 20.42 °C in December in Can Solar Air Heater (CSAH) and Ribs Solar Air Heater (RSAH) respectively. In CSAH, the average heat transfer rate is improved by 7.65 % and 10.17% in October and December respectively as compared to RSAH. The Performance of CSAH is more than 7.17% and 12.41% as compared to RSAH in months of October and December. The finding showed that the CSAH works better than the RSAH in forced convection. In both types of Solar heaters it is found that as enhancement in mass flow rate increase the pressure drop and Nusselt number but the friction factor decreases. Both designs of SAH namely CSAH and RSAH are new in the area of solar air heater and proved to be very effective in transfer the heat and creating the turbulence in the air flow path.