Study on Selection of a Suitable Material and The Parameters for Designing a Portable Flat Plate Base-Thermal Cell Absorber (FPBTCA)

Abstract

Several types of flat plate solar collectors have been designed and developed with various technical parameters involved in the design. The limitations of a flat plate solar collector are energy storage and design of flat plate absorber height and weight. An investigation on the effect of flat plate absorber-collector material, glass thickness, air gap distance and flat plate absorber base collector thickness on the performance of solar thermal collectors was conducted in this work. The results obtained will be used as the base to develop thermal cell application on flat plate solar collector. The experiment was performed using a solar simulator with solar radiation of 450 W/m2 and 750 W/m2 . The results showed that 2.0 mm glass thickness yielded maximum flat plate absorber temperature (88.1 ℃ at t = 600 s), high heat gain rate (0.097 ℃/s), and highest total heat gain (1207.33 J). The results also revealed that the air gap distance of 10.0 mm achieved maximum flat plate absorber temperature (64.6 ℃ at t = 600 s), highest heat gain rate (0.058 ℃/s), and highest total heat gain (4750.92 J). The stainless?steel thermal cell absorber thickness of 1.0 mm yielded thermal cell absorber temperature (76.2 ℃ at t = 600 s) and high heat gain rate (0.08 ℃/s). The aluminum flat plate base absorber achieved the highest flat plate absorber temperature (67.2 ℃ at t = 600 s) and the highest heat gain rate (0.062 ℃/s). Using double glass as glass cover increased the flat plate absorber temperature (76.3 ℃ at t = 600 s) and highest heat gain rate (0.077 ℃/s). This research aims to produce a flat plate absorber with better energy storage, and with the performance of the stainless-steel plate absorber better than aluminum of the same thickness. Although the stainless-steel flat plate absorber?collector showed a lower temperature than aluminum, it had a higher temperature drop than the latter.