Cover plate

A transparent sheet used to cover the absorber, thereby preventing dust and rain from

coming in contact with the absorber, it also retard the heat from escaping, common materials

used for cover plates are glass, fibre glass, flexi glass, but the material used for was glass. The

small thickness of the cover makes it reasonable to consider a uniform temperature through it.

The transparent cover typically glass which is put on the top of flat plate collector. Convection

heat transfer takes place between solar radiation and on the surface of the glass cover. (Mirza

Muneer Baig et al, 2017)

Schematic diagram of finned plate solar air heater (Bhattacharyya et al, 2016)

Glass cover:

       
A hc  am Tam  Tc  hc  a Ta  Tc  hr1 Ta b  Tc  I t  mcCc
dTc
dt
Where,

A Area of heat transfer (m2 )

hc  am heat transfer coefficient of glass cover

hc  a heat transfer coefficient of glass cover to air gap

α Absorptivity

It incident solar radiation on collector tilted surface [W/m2]

surface [W/m

Cc Specific heat of solid (J/Kg K)

Tc Temperature of glass cover

Ta Temperature of air gap

mc mass of glass cover

The heat transfer coefficient for radiation between the absorber plate and glass cover is,

hr1  
T 2
ab 
 T 2 c Tab  Tc 
1 1
 1
c  ab
 Where

hr1 radiation heat transfer coefficient

Tab Temperature of absorber

c Emissivity of glass cover

 ab Emissivity of absorber

Angle of tilt(  ) of solar collector

Natural convection heat transfer coefficient between glass cover and absorber plate is

calculated based on the following correlation

 1708sin 1.8 1.6    1


1708   R cos   3 
Nu  1  1.441   1     1
 R cos    R cos    5830  


Where

R Conduction heat transfer resistance (W/m2 K)

 Tilt Angle of collector (˚)

Nu Nusselt number
Angle of Tilt (  ) of Solar Collector The angle of tilt (  ) of the solar collector is given by

equation below.

  100  Lat

Where

lat φ is the latitude of the collector location

Determination of the Base Insulator thickness for the collector

KAc To  Ta 
FR ma cpa To  Ti  
tb

KAc
tb 
FR m a Cp a

Where

FR Heat removal factor (0.1)

ma Mass flow rate of air (kg/sec)

cpa Specific heat of air (kJ/kgK)

To Outlet air temperature (K)

Ti Inlet air temperature (K)

Ta Ambient air temperature (K)

 K Thermal conductivity of insulation (W/mK)

Ac Area of collector (m2 )

tb Thickness of base insulator (mm)

References

Bhattacharyya et al. (2016). Heat Transfer Analysis on Finned Plate Air Heating Solar.
International Conference on Recent Advancement in Air Conditioning and Refrigeration.

jayesh lakhani et al. (2013). DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOLAR DRYER FOR FRUIT
CHIPS.

Mirza Muneer Baig et al. (2017). Calculation and Fabrication of a Solar Flat Plate. International
Journal of Science Technology & Engineering | Volume 3 |.

Papade et al. (2014). Design & Development of Indirect Type Solar Dryer with Energy Storing
Material. International Journal of Innovative Research in Advanced Engineering .