The mode of operation of mini parabolic solar panels made of germanium, mild steel and aluminium were investigated experimentally, as means of providing heated water on a farmland; the process was also modelled. Angular adjustments of the solar collectors from 70-90o were adopted in order to determine, the best material of construction for the parabolic solar collector and the angular orientati...

The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), with the support of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), has investigated the thermal performance of solar absorbers which are an integral yet indistinguishable part of a building’s roof. The first roof-integrated solar absorber (RISA) system was retrofitted into FSEC’S Flexible Roof Facility in Cocoa, Florida in September 1998. This “proof-of...

In this study, the exergy efficiency of a flat plate solar collector using Al2O3, TiO2, CuO nanoparticles and pure water as base fluid is studied. Solar radiation is selected between 200 to 600 W/m2. The method to determine optimum values of optimization variables has been developed by Genetic Algorithm Toolbox in MATLAB software. Results show by increasing solar radiation the optimized exergy ...

In this paper, a new solar-heated generation system with capacity of 10kW is designed. The system is based on solar-heated Rankine cycle. The CPC solar energy collector array is used as the main heat source, and the gas boiler as the assistant heat source. The heat storage facility provides heat for put-off 24 hours generating without sun’s radiation. The paper is focused on the analysis of fou...

in this research a flat plate solar air collector was investigated under direct solar radiation consisted of a slatted glass cover, perforated absorber aluminum sheets (porosity 0.0177, 0.0314 and absorber thickness of 2.5 mm). the effect of porosity on absorber efficiency of collector was evaluated. six levels of air mass flow rates (0.0056 to 0.0385 kg m-2 s-1) were adopted.average solar ener...

An evacuated tubular solar collector was fabricated from acrylics for improved resistance to shattering. A plasmatron was employed to apply a thin gas-barrier coating to the surfaces of the plastic tube to prevent/alleviate gas infiltration. Experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of vacuum level on the performance of the non-glass vacuum-tube solar collector. Inserted in the evacu...

sustainable development would be a key solution for climate change and renewable energy plays an important role in this policy. recently, according to increase of co2 emission and other relevant impacts, solar energy has been gaining more attentions from policy makers. thus, compound parabolic concentrators collectors are considered as one of the promising applications from solar thermal advant...

Solar air heater is a type of heat exchanger which transforms solar radiation into heat energy. The thermal performance of conventional solar air heater has been found to be poor because of the low convective heat transfer coefficient from the absorber plate to the air. It is attributed to the formation of a very thin boundary layer at the absorber plate surface commonly known as viscous sub-la...

In this paper we present a prototype for a new type of solar thermal collector designed for architectural integration. In this proposal, the conventional geometry of a flat solar thermal collector is changed to a curved geometry, to improve its visual impact when mounted on a building facade or roof. The mathematical equations for the beam and diffuse solar radiation received by a collector wit...