Thermal Load Analysis of a Solar Thermal Flat Plate Collector in a Domestic Heating System
Abstract
Considering the significantly increased costs for aluminium and copper that are at present primarily used in the solar-thermal flat-plate collector design, polymeric materials show a remarkable potential for cost reduction. Apart from moderate material costs especially for commodity plastics, highly efficient production processes provide an interesting prospective for the use of polymeric materials. However, several technological challenges have to be met prior to the use of polymeric materials in a wide range of applications for collectors. This is especially the limited thermal property of various polymers in comparison to copper, aluminium or glass.