What is it about?

This work discusses how to increase the performance of solar air heater (SAH) using new absorber configuration. First of all, SAH is a device that heats up air by action of solar energy. It can be used in many application such as air-conditioning, drying and power generation. Simply, it consists of air flow duct with transparent upper wall while the bottom and lateral walls are thermally insulated. The main part of SAH is the absorber which is a black metal plate which is positioned inside the duct parallel to the upper wall with a gap between them. This gap represent the air flow pass through which the air flows and is heated due to the effect of solar radiation that falls on the SAH. The role of the absorber is to absorb heat from the incident solar radiation and transfer the heat to the air that flows over which. This work has suggested three modifications. Firstly, the SAH has two air passes over and under the absorber. Secondly, the absorber plate is perforated. Thirdly, baffles are placed on the absorber upper and lower surfaces normally with the direction of the flow. By this technique, the air is guided to flow through the absorber that allow to take more heat from the absorber. The results have revealed that the efficiency of the SAH has increased from 57 % to 78 % by using this modification.

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Why is it important?

This will increase the opportunity of commercializing solar systems due to the enhancement occurred in their performance.

Perspectives

I expect that this paper will attract the researches in field to consider the double-pass perforated SAH in their solar air systems under study. Also, the industries of solar systems will improve their products based on the high-performance parts such as the current SAH adopted in this work.

Ali Gitan
Tikrit University

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This page is a summary of: Performance enhancement of perforated solar air heater with baffles based on passive mixing technique, January 2024, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0185617.
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