Escolar Documentos
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DOI 10.1007/s00231-012-0972-3
ORIGINAL
Received: 17 November 2010 / Accepted: 4 January 2012 / Published online: 14 January 2012
Springer-Verlag 2012
Ta
Tb
Thp
Ti
UL
U
W
Greek symbols
a Absorptivity
d Absorber plate thickness (m)
k Thermal conductivity (W m-1 K-1)
s Transmissivity of glass cover, local time (h)
e Heat transfer effectiveness
g Thermal efficiency
1 Introduction
Solar thermal utilization is of great importance for environmental protection and conventional energy saving.
A variety of flat plate solar collectors and evacuated tubular
solar collectors have been produced and applied around the
world. However, these conventional solar collectors suffer
from some drawbacks, such as reversed cycle during
cloudy periods of the day and the night, high heat capacity,
limited quantity of heat transferred by the fluid, high
pumping requirements, scale formation, freezing and corrosion [1]. Heat pipes offer a promising solution to these
problems. Heat pipes are devices of very high thermal
conductance, which transfer thermal energy by two phase
circulation of fluid, and can easily be integrated into most
types of solar collector [2, 3]. The basic difference in
thermal performance between a heat pipe solar collector
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Qx Qnet Qxdx
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C1;2
dx2
kd
Thus
C0;1 C0;2
Tb1 S=UL Ta
2chmH=2
where H = W - D.
Substituting Eq. 6 into Eq. 4, the final solution for the
temperature distribution is then
T
chmx
Tb1 S=UL Ta S=UL Ta
chmH=2
C1;1
The heat flow rate into the vertical plane that contains
point B1 is calculated by
dT
QB1 kdLe kdmLe Tb1 2C1;2 S=UL Ta
dx
x0
10
On the basis of the temperature distribution of region
B1A2 in absorber plate, the heat flow rate out of the
vertical plane that contains point A2 is written as
dT
QA2 kdLe
dx xWD
kdmLe C1;1 expmH C1;2 expmH
11
2.2.3 The region A1B1 of No.1 heat pipe
The gained solar energy in the region A1B1 of No.1 heat
pipe is
QA1B1 p=2DLe S UL Tb1 Ta
The heat flow rate which enters into the vertical plane
that contains point A1 by conduction can be expressed as
dT
1
QA1 kdLe
HLe F S UL Tb1 Ta
8
dx
2
xH=2
12
13
14
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1172
16
where
Cn1;2
17b
CN1;2 expmH
17c
CN;2
CN;1
17a
Cn;2
TbN S=UL Ta
;
1 expmH
TbN CN;1 S=UL Ta
21
19
23
25
26
The heat flow rate into the vertical plane that contains
point BN is calculated by
dT
QBN kdLe kdmLe CN;1 CN;2
20
dx x0
en 1 expNTUcn ;
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Again,
NTUcn Acn Uc;0n =GCP
28
e1 e2 e3 e4 en e
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29
30
31
32
where n 2 2; 3; 4; . . .; N.
From the relation T0n with Tbn, it is shown that Eqs. 15,
16 and 23 consist of N equations which contain N unknown
quantities. Obviously, closed form solutions can be
obtained from these equations. Namely, we can gain the
temperature Tb1, Tb2, Tb3,, TbN of region A1B1, A2B2,
A3B3,, ANBN of the heat pipes. Meanwhile, the heated
fluid outlet temperature of each heat pipe T01, T02, T03,,
T0N can be found out. Further, the thermal efficiency of the
heat pipe flat plate solar collector g can be calculated as [6]
g
GCp T0N Ti
I0 Acoll
33
3 Results validation
Take the collector parameters in Ref. [6], the heat pipe was
made of copper with length of 0.92 m and outer diameter
D of 0.0127 m. The lengths of evaporator and condenser
section, i.e., Le and Lc are 0.75 and 0.1 m, respectively. The
glass cover plate was sized in 0.76 m 9 1.9 m 9 0.004 m,
of which the transmissivity s is 0.9. The absorber plate was
made of copper with size of 1.89 m 9 0.75 m and it was
coated with anodic alumina spectral selective absorption
material of which the absorptivity a is 0.94. The condenser
section of heat pipe is placed in the heated fluid channels of
1.9 m 9 0.1 m 9 0.03 m. The heated fluid, namely water
flows in succession over the condenser section of the heat
pipe in a crosswise manner. The heat loss coefficient
between the absorber plate and environment UL is 8.6
W/m2 K [23]. Other parameters, such as solar intensity Io
and ambient temperature Ta are from Ref. [6]. Initial wall
temperature distributions were assumed for each heat pipe,
then the GaussSeidel iteration method was employed to
solve the above mentioned N equations, and the calculation
results are discussed in the following. For the convenience
of illustration and comparison, th means the theoretical
calculations in this paper; exp and nu, respectively
denote the experimental and numerical results in Ref. [6].
The theoretical water outlet temperature in this paper is
compared with the experimental and numerical values in
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4 Conclusions
The equations describing the temperature distributions of
the absorber plate and the relationships between each heat
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2.
3.
References
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