Pressure Drop in Parallel Flow Flat-Plate PVT Collectors
Abstract
Pressure drop is known to be an important factor for the efficacy of thermosiphon systems. Accordingly, in this paper a flat-plate PV/T solar collector is studied to predict the pressure drop over it. First, a numerical model of the collector is presented and fluid dynamic concepts are introduced. This is done in order to determine an expression of pressure drop for a given water flow rate over both the collector’s channels and manifolds. Then, an algorithm is presented to predict the pressure drop over the whole collector. The effect of the manifold size on the induced pressure drop is investigated. Finally, three flat-plat solar collectors with different manifold dimensions were used as a test case in which the model was validated within 3-8% in terms of normalized root-mean-square deviation. For the case of flat-plate PV/T solar collectors to be used in thermosiphon water systems, this model can be used to investigate trade-offs between fabrication choices and the thermosiphon performance.
Keywords
Pressure drop, Pv/t collector, Solar energy, Heat exchanger, Thermosiphon, Dualsun module