Performance Study of Solar Water Heater Integrated With Reflectors to Enhance the Water Temperature
Abstract
Natural convection-based solar water heater is a widely used system to generate hot water for household as well as industrial applications. With the flat plate collector design, the system can generate a water temperature of around 333 K. Forced circulation or evacuated tube-based solar water heaters are available to generate higher temperatures of about 363-368 K, however, they have higher operating and capital costs. With the objective of generating a higher temperature of water above 363 K, for mainly industrial applications at lower cost, this paper presents an experimental performance study of a basic flat plate collector design integrated with side reflectors. It also includes a performance comparison of solar water heaters with and without reflectors and an evaluation of overall thermal efficiency.
Keywords
Solar water heater, Reflector, Solar energy, Thermal efficiency