Previsioning Solar Collector Thermal Efficiency from Design Parameters: A Numerical Model Achieved from Tests Results
Abstract
Solar thermal energy has an important role in the current world energetic transition from fossil fuels sources to renewable energy sources. As a result, it is necessary to improve solar collector thermal efficiency, which strongly depends on collector design parameters. This work aims to obtain a numerical model correlating some collector design parameters to its thermal efficiency for different climatic conditions. For this purpose, it was analyzed 49 thermal efficiency tests results performed on different types of flat plate solar collectors and the efficiencies determined experimentally were correlated with absorber plate thickness, number of riser tubes, type of plate-tube contact and type of absorber painting. Moreover, from the obtained and validated model, the studied design parameters were ranked according to their influence on thermal efficiency. Results showed that the numerical model has good agreement with the experimental results. In addition, parameters were ranked according to its influence in the collector efficiency on each climatic condition.