NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF INCLINED PRISMATIC FIN INSTALLATION UNDER V-CORRUGATED ABSORBER PLATE FOR SOLAR COLLECTOR PERFORMANCE
1. Mohamad Hakam, 2. Djatmiko Ichsani, 3. Rachmad Tri Soelistijono,4 Mohammad Abu Jamiin

Politeknik Perkapalan Negeri Surabaya

Abstract

To enhance the efficiency of the solar air heater collector, this study installed an inclined prismatic fin and built an absorption area utilizing v-corrugated absorber plates. The CFD program was used in this investigation to simulate the properties of fluid flow and heat transport numerically. A fluent software with double precision and the Shear Stress Transport k-&#969- (SST-k&#969-) turbulence viscous model was used to run three-dimensional simulations to study the impact of installing fins with different fin thicknesses of 3 mm, 4 mm, and 5 mm, and fin angles of attack of 22.5o, 45o, and 67.5o, respectively. A constant heat flux of 430 watts/m2 and an input velocity of 6.5 m/s are used to test the fin numerically. Simulation results show the optimum fin configuration was achieved by 3 mm in thickness and 67.5o angle of attack, with 9.621 K temperature difference from inlet to outlet collector, the pressure drop is 229.625 Pa, Effectiveness Ratio (ER) is 0.2499, and the highest Q-useful energy is 96.147watt.

Keywords: Solar collector, V-corrugated absorber plate, ansys fluent software, inclined prismatic fin.

Topic: Renewable energy