Kumar Rajneesh, Kharub Manjeet, Sharma Rajesh, Hrisheekesha Periapattana Nagaraj, Goel Varun, Bhattacharyya Suvanjan, Tyagi Vineet Veer
Mechanical Engineering Department, Chandigarh Engineering College Landran, Punjab, India.
Mechanical Engineering Department, CVR College of Engineering, Hyderabad, India.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Jan;30(2):3942-3952. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-22404-2. Epub 2022 Aug 12.
A solar collector is a simple and cheap device that converts solar radiation into valuable heat energy. The thermal performance of the solar collectors can be enhanced significantly with the suspension of nanoparticles in the base fluid. A novel design for a solar-assisted water heater (SWH) is proposed in the current study, and the effect of nanofluid has been investigated on the thermal efficiency of the SWH. The use of nanofluid is one of the prominent methods in comparison to other techniques for improving the performance of solar collectors. Therefore, the base working fluid, i.e., water is mixed with the alumina nanoparticles of average particle size of 30 nm, and they are assumed to be spherical. The flow and thermal characteristics of nanofluid through the solar water heater are simulated numerically with the help of the Eulerian-Eulerian two-phase model using the finite volume method (FVM). The commercial package ANSYS Fluent, is used for modeling the problem under transient conditions with a pressure-based solver. In comparison to a conventional flat plate collector, the proposed solar water heater consists of a corrugated absorber-plate and the effect of the radius of curvature has been investigated on the heat transfer and collector efficiency. With the proposed design, the heat transfer area available with the riser tubes increases remarkably and it leads to a 43% and 14% increase in heat transfer augmentation and collector efficiency, in comparison to the conventional solar water heater.
太阳能集热器是一种简单且廉价的装置，可将太阳辐射转化为宝贵的热能。通过在基础流体中悬浮纳米颗粒，可显著提高太阳能集热器的热性能。本研究提出了一种新型太阳能辅助热水器（SWH）设计，并研究了纳米流体对SWH热效率的影响。与其他提高太阳能集热器性能的技术相比，使用纳米流体是突出的方法之一。因此，将基础工作流体即水与平均粒径为30纳米的氧化铝纳米颗粒混合，并假定它们为球形。借助欧拉-欧拉两相模型，使用有限体积法（FVM）对纳米流体通过太阳能热水器的流动和热特性进行了数值模拟。商业软件包ANSYS Fluent用于在瞬态条件下使用基于压力的求解器对该问题进行建模。与传统平板集热器相比，所提出的太阳能热水器由波纹吸收板组成，并研究了曲率半径对传热和集热器效率的影响。采用所提出的设计，立管的可用传热面积显著增加，与传统太阳能热水器相比，传热增强和集热器效率分别提高了43%和14%。
