article · Processes
A modified configuration of a flat-plate solar air heater, designated Case B, demonstrates superior thermal performance compared to a conventional setup, Case A. Both designs were assessed through physical outdoor testing under Egyptian climatic conditions and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations. The numerical model, developed using an RNG turbulence approach, accurately predicted outlet air temperatures, relative humidity, and flow velocities, with temperature deviations from experimental values staying below eight percent. The modified collector achieved an average experimental thermal efficiency of 26.4 percent, outperforming the conventional design's 18.2 percent. It also delivered substantial reductions in outlet relative humidity. The validated simulation framework offers a dependable method for designing and evaluating alternative solar air heater configurations without relying solely on physical prototypes.
Solar air heaters provide renewable heat for agricultural drying, space heating, and industrial processes. Improving their efficiency while validating reliable digital simulation tools allows engineers to optimise thermal equipment more cheaply and rapidly, reducing the need for costly physical trial and error during product development.
The findings are relevant to equipment manufacturers and renewable heating designers developing solar thermal systems for space heating or drying applications. With experimental prototypes built and evaluated alongside computational fluid dynamics models under real outdoor conditions, the technology sits at an applied and tested stage, though specific market products and commercial deployment routes are not detailed in the study.
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The main objective of this research was to create two different configurations of a flat-plate solar air heater, namely, Conventional-Case A and Modified-Case B, and develop a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model using ANSYS R15.0. The purpose of the CFD model was to simulate the heat transfer behavior of the proposed solar air heaters under unsteady conditions. The RNG k-ε turbulence model was employed for this CFD study. The experiments were conducted on sunny days, under the same conditions as the Egyptian climate. The results of the experiments show that the simulated CFD model and the measured outlet airflow temperatures, relative humidity, and velocities of the two tested solar air heaters were compared. The developed model made very satisfactory predictions. Moreover, the deviations between the average CFD outlet air temperatures and the experimental results were 7% and 7.8% for Case B and Case A, respectively. The CFD-simulated average relative humidity was reduced by 31.6% when using Case B compared with Case A, and it was reduced by 28.8% when comparing the experimental data to Case B. Additionally, the average CFD thermal efficiencies obtained for Case B and Case A were 28.7% and 21.6%, respectively, while the average experimental thermal efficiencies for the cases were 26.4% and 18.2%, respectively. The proposed model can be used to design and simulate other solar air heater designs.
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DOI: 10.3390/pr11041227
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