Renewable Energy 67 (2014) 202e206

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Flat-plate collector construction and system conguration to optimize

the thermosiphonic effect
Soteris A. Kalogirou
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences and Engineering, Cyprus University of Technology, P. O. Box 50329, 3603 Limassol, Cyprus

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 16 October 2013
Accepted 14 November 2013
Available online 4 December 2013

Thermosiphon systems heat potable water or heat transfer uid and use natural convection to transport
it from the collector to storage. This type of technology is applied extensively in countries with good
sunshine potential. One such example is Cyprus, which is currently the leading country in the world with
respect to the application of solar water heaters for domestic applications, with more than 93% of the
houses equipped with such a system. The performance of such a system depends on many factors
including the collector construction and the arrangement of the system, mainly with respect to the
distance between the top of the solar collector and the bottom of the storage tank and the solar collector
slope, which affects both the energy collected and the hydrostatic pressure of the system. A typical
system in Cyprus uses 3 m2 of collectors, 160 l storage, its collectors are usually inclined at 45
from
horizontal and has 15 mm copper riser tubes and header tubes with a diameter of 28 mm. The collector
absorber plate is also made from copper. The main objective of this paper is to investigate through
modeling and simulation possible congurations, which will optimize the performance of the system.
For this purpose, a number of riser and header tube diameters were considered ranging from 6 mm to
35 mm, slopes from 20
to 90
and distances between the top of the collector to the bottom side of the
storage tank ranging from 15 cm. The system is modeled using TRNSYS and simulated with the Typical
Meteorological Year (TMY) of Nicosia, Cyprus. The results showed that the best-optimized system is
obtained for small header and riser pipe diameters and very close performance is obtained for various
combinations. Therefore, the decision on the optimum system should depend on cost issues, which are
currently very important because of the increased price of copper and operational problems depending
on the hardness of the water in the area of installation, which could cause scale deposits that could clog
the riser pipes. The optimum slope is found to be equal to the latitude plus 10
, i.e., 45
, although a
smaller slope does not affect the performance a lot, and the optimum distance between the top of the
collector and the bottom of the storage tank is 15 cm. These ndings should prove valuable for the
collector and systems designers and manufacturers.

2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Thermosiphonic solar water heaters
Header and riser pipe diameters
Collector slope
System conguration

1. Introduction
Thermosiphon systems heat potable water or heat transfer uid
and use natural convection to transport it from the collector to
storage. With reference to Fig. 1, the thermosiphonic effect occurs
because the density of water (or heat transfer uid) drops with the
increase of the temperature. By the action of solar radiation
absorbed, the water in the collector is heated and thus expands
becoming less dense and rises through the collector into the top of
the storage tank. There it is replaced by the cooler water that has
sunk to the bottom of the tank, from which it ows down the
collector. Circulation continuous as long as there is sunshine. This

E-mail addresses: Soteris.kalogirou@cut.ac.cy, skalogir@spidernet.com.cy.

0960-1481/$ e see front matter
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2013.11.021

type of technology is applied extensively in countries with good

sunshine potential. One such example is Cyprus, which is currently
the leading country in the world with respect to the application of
solar water heaters for domestic hot water production, with more
than 93% of the houses equipped with such a system. The advantages of thermosiphon systems are that they do not rely on pumps
and controllers, are more reliable, and have a longer life than forced
circulation systems. Moreover, they do not require an electrical
supply to operate and they modulate naturally the circulation ow
rate, which is in phase with the radiation levels.
The main disadvantage of thermosiphon systems is that because
the storage tank should be above the collector they are comparatively tall units, which makes them not very attractive aesthetically.
There are two types of thermosiphon systems; pressurized and
unpressurized. In pressurized thermosiphon units, the make-up

S.A. Kalogirou / Renewable Energy 67 (2014) 202e206

203

Fig. 3. Thermosiphon solar water heaters with horizontal storage tanks installed on
south oriented inclined roofs.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a thermosiphon solar water heater.

water is from city mains or pressure units and the collectors and
storage tanks must be able to withstand the working pressure.
When city water is used directly, pressure reducing and relief
valves must be installed to protect the system because the pressure
can be greater than the working pressure of the collectors and
storage tank.
In gravity systems, usually installed where the city water supply
is intermittent, a cold-water storage tank is installed on top of the
solar collector, supplying both the hot water cylinder and the cold
water needs of the house. This makes the collector unit taller and
less attractive. Another disadvantage of the system is related to the
quality of the water used. As the system is open, extremely hard or
acidic water can cause scale deposits that clog or corrode the
absorber uid passages.
A typical such system, shown in Fig. 2, consists of two at-plate
collectors (2.5e4 m2 in area) and a storage tank (150e200 l). The
performance of such a system depends on many factors including
the collector construction and the arrangement of the system,
mainly with respect to the distance between the top of the solar
collector and the bottom of the storage tank and the solar collector
slope, which affects both the energy collected and the hydrostatic
pressure of the system. The collector construction concerns mainly
the diameter of the riser and header pipes, which determines

Fig. 2. Typical thermosiphon solar water heater installed on a horizontal roof.

according to the ow created by the thermosiphonic effect, the

friction that needs to be overcome. The riser pipe diameter affects
also the collector efciency factor and the heat removal factor. The
typical system in Cyprus, described above, uses 3 m2 of collectors,
160 l storage, its collectors are usually inclined at 45
from horizontal
and has 15 mm copper riser tubes and header tubes with a diameter
28 mm. The collector absorber plate is also made from copper.
Cyprus suffers for many years from a water shortage problem, which
leads to frequent water supply interruption. For this reason, a coldwater tank is installed (big white circular tank) on top of the collector
to supply both the solar system and the house with water.
Lately, in an attempt to reduce the height of the system, horizontal hot water storage tanks were used as shown in Fig. 3, which
also try to blend the system on the building roof. A better way is
to use a pressurized water supply system, in which case the coldwater tank can be installed at a lower level but this is more
expensive. Such a system on a sloping roof is shown in Fig. 4 and the
esthetic improvement is obvious.
The objective of this paper is to investigate through modeling and
simulation, possible congurations, which will optimize the performance of the system. For this purpose, a number of riser and header
tube diameters were considered ranging from 6 mm to 35 mm,
slopes from latitude 10
and distances between the top of the
collector to the bottom side of the storage tank ranging from 15 cm.
2. Theoretical performance of thermosiphon solar water
heaters
The thermosiphonic effect occurs because the density of water
drops with the increase of the temperature. Therefore, by the action
of solar radiation absorbed, the water in the collector is heated and
thus expands, becoming less dense, and thus rises through the
collector into the top of the storage tank. There it is replaced by
cooler water that has sunk to the bottom of the tank, from which it
ows down the collector. Circulation continuous as long as the sun
is shining. Since the driving force is only a small difference in
density, larger than normal connecting pipe sizes are used to
minimize pipe friction. Connecting lines must be well insulated to

Fig. 4. Pressurized thermosiphon solar water heater.

204

S.A. Kalogirou / Renewable Energy 67 (2014) 202e206

prevent heat loss and sloped to prevent formation of air pockets,

which would stop circulation.
The performance of thermosiphon solar water heaters has been
studied extensively, both experimentally and analytically, by
numerous researchers. Among the rst studies were those of Close
[1] and Gupta and Garg [2], who developed one of the rst models for
the thermal performance of a natural circulation solar water heater
with no load. They represented solar radiation and ambient temperature by Fourier series and were able to predict a days performance in a manner that agreed substantially with experiments.
Ong performed two studies [3,4] to evaluate the thermal performance of a solar water heater. He instrumented a relatively small
system with ve thermocouples on the bottom surface of the water
tubes and six thermocouples on the bottom surface of the collector
plate. A total of six thermocouples were inserted into the storage
tank and a dye tracer mass ow meter was employed. Ongs studies
appear to be the rst detailed ones on a thermosiphonic system.
Morrison and Braun [5] studied the modeling and operation
characteristics of thermosiphon solar water heaters with vertical or
horizontal storage tanks. They found that the system performance
is maximized when the daily collector volume ow is approximately equal to the daily load ow, and the system with horizontal
tank did not perform as well as that with a vertical one. This model
has also been adopted by the TRNSYS simulation program. According to this model, a thermosiphon system consisting of a atplate collector and a stratied tank is assumed to operate at a
steady state. The system is divided into N segments normal to the
ow direction, and the Bernoullis equation for incompressible ow
is applied to each segment. For steady-state conditions the sum of
pressure drop at any segment is:

DPi ri ghfi ri gHi

(1)

And the sum of the pressure changes around the loop is 0; that
is,

F 0 UL



_ T cp
m
F U Ac
ln 1  R L
_ T cp
Ac
m

(4)

Finally, the useful energy from the collector is obtained from:

Qu rAc FR saIt  FR UL Ti  Ta 

(5)

where the ratio r is given by Ref. [6]:

h

i
0
_ t 1  exp  Fm_ULcAc
m
_t
FR m
t p
h

i
r

0
_T
FR m
_ T 1  exp  F _UL Ac
m
m c

(6)

T p

The temperature drop along the collector inlet and outlet pipes
is usually very small (short distance, insulated pipes), and the pipes
are considered to be single nodes, with negligible thermal capacitance. The rst-law analysis gives the following expressions for the
outlet temperature (Tpo) of pipes:



UAp


Tpo Ta Tpi  Ta exp 
_ t cp
m

(7)

The friction head loss in pipes is given by:

fLv2 kv2

2dg 2g

Hf

(8)

where
d pipe diameter (m).
v uid velocity (m/s).
L length of pipe (m).
k tting loss coefcient.
f friction factor.
The friction factor, f, is equal to:

N
X

ri hfi

i1

N
X

r i Hi

(2)

i1

where

ri density of any node calculated as a function of local tem-

perature (kg/m3).
h friction head drop through an element (m).
Hi vertical height of the element (m).

f 64=Re for Re < 2000

(9)

f 0:032 for Re > 2000

(10)

The tting loss coefcient for various parts of the circuit can be
estimated by using standard relations from uid mechanics.
The friction factor for the developing ow in the connecting
pipes and collector risers is given by:

f 1

For each time interval, the thermosiphon ow rate must

uniquely satisfy Eq. (2).
The collector thermal performance can be modeled by dividing
it into Nc equally sized nodes. The temperature at the midpoint of
any collector mode k is given by:





It F sa
It F sa
F 0 UL Ac k1=2
exp 
Tk Ta R
Ti Ta  R

_ t cp
FR UL
FR UL
Nc
m

The collector header pressure drop, Ph, is equal to the average of

pressure change along inlet and outlet headers for equal mass ow
in each riser, N, given by:

S1

N
X
Ni1
i1

S2

F0 U

The collector parameter,

L, is calculated from the collector
_ T by using the equation for the
test data for FRUL at test ow rate m
FR, which can be modied as:

A1

N2

N
X
N  i 12
i1

_ t thermosiphonic ow rate (kg/s).

m
Ac collector area (m2).

(11)

L
dRe

(3)
where

0:038
0:964

fLh v2h
2dh

N2

(12)

(13)

(14)

where, from Eq. (9), f 64/Re (Re based on inlet header velocity and
temperature) and

S.A. Kalogirou / Renewable Energy 67 (2014) 202e206

A2 A1 if f 64=Re

(15)

Table 1
Header and riser pipe diameter variations.

Based on the outlet header velocity and temperature,

A3

rv2h
2

(16)

Finally,

Ph

S1 A1 2S2 A3 S1 A2
2

205

Header diameter (mm)

Riser diameters (mm)

15
22
28
35

6,
6,
6,
6,

8,
8,
8,
8,

10,
10,
10,
10,

12
12, 15
12, 15, 22
12, 15, 22, 28

(17)

To model the complete system, the interaction of the storage

tank is required. This is modeled with the fully stratied storage
tank model.
The procedure to model the complete system is as follows.
Initially, the temperature distribution around the thermosiphon
loop for the ow rate of the previous time step is evaluated. The inlet
temperature to the collector is computed from the bulk mean temperature of the segments in the bottom of the tank with a volume
equal to the collector volume ow. After allowance for heat loss from
the inlet pipe, with Eq. (8), is made, the temperature of each of the Nc
xed nodes used to represent the collector temperature prole is
evaluated from Eq. (3). Finally, the temperature of the new uid
segment returned to the tank is computed from the collector outlet
temperature and the temperature drop across the return pipe to the
tank. A new tank temperature prole is then evaluated.
The thermosiphon pressure head due to density differences
around the loop is determined from the system temperature prole. The difference between the friction pressure drop around the
circuit and the net thermosiphon pressure is evaluated for this ow
rate. These values and those from the previous calculation, for the
ow rate and net difference between the friction and static pressures, are then used to estimate the new ow; this process is
repeated until Eq. (2) is satised.
A simple way to estimate the ow rate that will be created in a
thermosiphon solar water heater is to assume that there is a constant temperature increase of water owing through the collector
and estimate the ow rate that will create this temperature difference for the estimated collector gain. Considering the basic
collector performance equation and using the concept of absorbed
solar radiation:

As can be seen from Table 1 riser pipe diameters vary from very
small up to one size smaller pipe diameter than the header pipe. In
addition to the variations shown in Table 1, slopes from 20
to 90

and distances between the top of the collector to the bottom side of
the storage tank ranging from 15 cm were evaluated.
Initially the collector performance characteristics were used to
estimate the heat removal factor (FR), the overall heat loss coefcient
(UL) and the transmittance-absorptance product (sa) of the collector.
However, the heat removal factor depends on the collector efciency
factor, which depends on the heat loss coefcient UL, diameter of the
riser tubes, distance between the riser tubes, collector n efciency
and the internal riser pipe convection heat transfer coefcient. The
latter depends on the ow rate and is estimated from the Nusselt
number, which is a function of the Reynolds number that determines
the type of ow in the riser tubes.
For each diameter of riser tubes in the collector, with all the
above combinations of the parameters, a new heat removal factor
was estimated as well as the number of riser tubes required so as
the resulting type of ow (in terms of the Reynolds number) to
remain the same in order to have an adequate circulation of water
in the collector. By using this new heat removal factor the modied
collector characteristics and the number of riser tubes are estimated, which are used in the various simulations. The values obtained from this procedure are shown in Table 2.
In Table 2, the data for the 15 mm riser tube size (indicated in
bold) are for the standard collector, which has 10 riser tubes and its
performance is evaluated using standard rating procedures in a
certied laboratory. Additionally, various heights between the
various components of the solar water heater are required.

4. Results

_ t cp To  Ti
Qu Ac FR S  UL Ti  Ta  m

(18)

Solving for the ow rate we get:

_t
m

Ac FR S  UL Ti  Ta 
cp To  Ti

(19)

By assuming that the collector efciency factor F0 is independent

of ow rate, substituting the equation for the FR and rearranging
gives:

_t
m

UL F 0 Ac
i
h
UL To Ti
cp ln 1  SU
L Ti Ta

(20)

The obtained value of ow rate can then be used to estimate F0

and if there is a difference, a second iteration is made.
3. Simulations
The system is modeled in TRNSYS and simulated with the
Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) of Nicosia, Cyprus. The simulations are performed for the whole year for a constant daily load
prole. The various congurations evaluated, concerning header
and riser pipes diameters are shown in Table 1.

The results produced concern the thermal efciency of the

system, dened as the energy input on the collector aperture to the
useful energy supplied by the collector on an annual basis. The
results shown in Fig. 5 are for a collector with an inclination of 35

and the distance between the bottom of the storage tank and the
collector outlet equals to 15 cm. As can be seen the values for
various riser diameters are very close, irrespective of the header
diameter, except for the smaller header size of 15 mm.
From the results presented in Fig. 5 it seems that, a small riser
diameter of 8 mm is the optimum. The smallest pipe of 6 mm is not

Table 2
Modied collector characteristics and number of riser tubes used in simulations.
Riser pipe
diameter (mm)

FR(sa)

FRUL

Number of
riser tubes

6
8
10
12
15
22
28

0.838
0.825
0.817
0.807
0.792
0.765
0.731

25.345
24.936
24.681
24.392
23.940
23.133
22.111

33
20
16
13
10
7
5

206

S.A. Kalogirou / Renewable Energy 67 (2014) 202e206

As can be seen from the results presented in Table 3 the optimum system is for a distance between the bottom of the storage
tank and the top of the collector equal to 15 cm for a collector
slope of 45
, although the difference for the other slopes at the
same distance is not that large. A more detailed view of the effect
of the collector slope is shown in Fig. 6. This is for a vertical
distance between the top of the collector and the bottom of the
storage tank equal to zero. It should be noted that the inclination
of the collector affects the solar energy collected (due to the
incidence angle effects), the hydraulics of the system as for
smaller slopes the hydraulic height is smaller and the friction
loses of the system, which is affected by the length of the connecting pipes. Here the optimum slope is given as 40
with small
variations for smaller slope of 35
. Therefore, purely on esthetic
reasons, as a smaller inclination leads to a smaller overall height
of the unit, the 35
inclination is selected.
Fig. 5. Performance of the collector for the various construction variations.

Table 3
Performance of the solar water heater for various collector slopes and distances
between the top of the collector and the bottom of the storage tank.
Slope

Distance

Thermal efciency
of system

25

15 cm
0 cm
15 cm
15 cm
0 cm
15 cm
15 cm
0 cm
15 cm

41.61
41.78
41.88
41.44
41.64
41.82
41.29
41.52
41.94

35

45

Note: For collector header diameter equal to 22 mm and collector riser diameter of
8 mm.

selected however as the systems employed in Cyprus are usually

open, circulating the water supplied to the user directly into the
collector, which may create scaling problems. Purely on cost issues,
and as the performance for all header pipes is almost the same, a
header diameter of 22 mm is selected. This is the same diameter as
the connecting pipes between the collector and storage tank, which
makes the installation easier.
The effect of collector slope and distance between the top of the
collector and the bottom of the storage tank for this optimum case
is shown in Table 3.

5. Conclusions
The results showed that the current typical system is not the
optimum case and its operation can be further improved. It is
shown that the smaller the diameter of the heater and riser pipes
the better is the performance of the system and very close performance is obtained for various combinations. Therefore, the
optimum system obtained has a header pipe of 22 mm and 20
number of riser pipes 8 mm in diameter, sloped at 45
and the
distance between the top of the collector and the bottom of the
storage tank is 15 cm. This decision depends mainly on cost
issues, which are currently very important because of the
increased price of copper and operational problems depending on
the hardness of the water in the area of installation, which could
cause scale deposits that could clog the riser pipes. As shown, the
slope of the collector panels does not affect the efciency of the
system much, so smaller slopes of 35
may be used to reduce the
height of the overall unit. On the contrary, the distance between
the top of the collector and the bottom of the storage tank affects
more the performance of the system. The smaller this distance is,
the higher is the system performance, which is also benecial for
the esthetic improvement of the system. These ndings should
prove valuable for the collector and systems designers and
manufacturers. It is planned in the near future to construct a
collector with the characteristics found here and evaluate its
performance under real conditions.

Acknowledgments
This work was carried out as part of a research project co-funded
by the Research Promotion Foundation (RPF) of Cyprus under
contract TEXNOLOGIA/ENEPG/0311(BIE)09 and the European
Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of the EU.

References

Fig. 6. Performance of the thermosiphonic system for slopes 20e90
(vertical distance
between the top of the collector and the bottom of the storage tank equal to zero).

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Energy 1962;6:33.
[2] Gupta GL, Garg HP. System design in solar water heaters with natural circulation. Solar Energy 1968;12:163e82.
[3] Ong KS. A nite difference method to evaluate the thermal performance of a
solar water heater. Solar Energy 1974;16:137e47.
[4] Ong KS. An improved computer program for the thermal performance of a solar
water heater. Solar Energy 1976;18:183e91.
[5] Morrison GL, Braun JE. System modelling and operation characteristics of
thermosiphon solar water heaters. Solar Energy 1985;34:389e405.
[6] Kalogirou SA. Solar energy engineering: processes and systems. Academic
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