International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences

www.ijetmas.com April 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476

Thermal Analysis of a Solar Flat-Plate Collector

Nalini Dasari1, Dr. K. Sridhar2

1
Research Scholar, Kakatiya University, Warangal, India
2
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, KITS Warangal, India

ABSTRACT: Solar energy is becoming an alternative for into heat, then transfer that heat to a fluid (usually
the limited fossil fuel resources. One of the simplest and air or water). The solar thermal energy can be used
most direct applications of this energy is the conversion in solar water-heating systems, solar space-heating
of solar radiation into heat, which can be used in space systems and solar pool heaters. There exist a large
or water heating systems. A commonly used solar number of solar collector designs that have shown
collector is the flat-plate. This flat plate collector to be functional. The two general types of solar
absorbs the incoming solar radiation, converts it to heat collectors are Flat plate and concentrating
at the absorber plat, and transfers this heat to a fluid
collectors.
flowing through the collector. The fluid is usually air or
water. The warmed fluid carries the heat directly to the  Flat-plate collectors – the absorbing surface area
hot water or space conditioning equipment. This paper is approximately same as the overall collector area
presents a precise and detailed analysis of a solar flat that intercepts the sun's radiation.  Concentrating
plate collector. collectors – a small absorber is focused with large
areas of mirrors or lenses.
NOMENCLATURE Flat-plate collectors
A collector area, m2 Flat-plate collectors are the most commonly used
FR collector heat removal factor solar collector for solar water-heating in homes and
I intensity of solar radiation, W/m2 solar space heating. A typical flat-plate collector is
Tc collector average temperature, °C made up of an insulated metal box with a plastic or
Ti inlet fluid temperature, °C glass cover and a absorber plate which is usually
Ta ambient temperature, °C dark colored. These collectors heat liquid or air at
UL collector overall heat loss coefficient, temperatures less than 90°C.
2
W/m
Qi collector heat input, W
Qu useful energy gain, W
Qo heat loss, W
Greek Symbols
 collector efficiency
 transmission coefficient of glazing
 absorption coefficient of plate
Subscripts
m mass flow rate of fluid through the
collector, kg/s

INTRODUCTION
Solar Collectors
Solar collectors are the key component of active
Fig. 1 A typical Solar Air Heater with Flat Plate
solar-heating systems. They gather the sun's energy,
Collector
transform its radiation

472 Nalini Dasari, Dr. K. Sridhar

 International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences
www.ijetmas.com April 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The schematic view of the heat flow through a solar
flat plate collector is shown in figure 2. Now the
point to be considered is, how to measure its
thermal performance, i.e. the collector efficiency or
useful energy gain.
Fig. 2 Heat flow through a Solar Flat Plate Collector
Now in order to find the governing equations of the
collector system it is necessary to define the
singular heat flow equations in a step by step
manner.
LITERATURE SURVEY
A typical solar air heater employing a solar flat
plate collector is shown in figure 3.
Fig. 3 A view of Solar Air Heater
If „I’ is the intensity of solar radiation, measured in
W/m2, incident on the surface or aperture plane of
473 Nalini Dasari, Dr. K. Sridhar
the solar collector having a surface area of „A’, in
m2, then the amount of solar radiation received or
heat received by the collector is given as:
However, from the total solar input radiation a part
is reflected back to the sky, another component is
absorbed by the glass or plastic cover and the rest is
transmitted through the glass and reaches the
absorber plate as short wave radiation as shown in
figure 2.
Therefore the conversion factor indicates the
percentage of the solar rays penetrating the
transparent cover of the collector (transmission) and
the percentage being absorbed.
Basically, it is the product of two parameters the
rate of transmission of the cover and the absorption
rate of the absorber.
Thus,
The temperature of collector becomes higher than
its surrounding as it absorbs heat and some
absorbed heat is lost to the atmosphere by
convection and radiation. The rate of heat loss (Qo)
depends on the collector overall heat transfer or
collector overall heat loss coefficient (UL) and the
collector temperature.
Thus, the rate of useful energy extracted by the
collector (Qu), expressed as a rate of extraction
under steady state conditions, is proportional to the
rate of useful energy absorbed by the collector, less
the amount lost by the collector to its surroundings.
This is expressed as:
It is also known that the rate of extraction of heat
from the collector may be measured by means of
the amount of heat carried away in the fluid passed
through it, that is:
Equation 4 proves to be somewhat inconvenient
because of the difficulty in defining the collector
average temperature. It is convenient to define a
quantity that relates the actual useful energy gain of
a collector to the useful gain if the whole collector
 International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences
www.ijetmas.com April 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476
surface were at the fluid inlet temperature. This
quantity is known as “the collector heat removal
factor (FR)” and is expressed as:
The maximum possible useful energy gain in a solar
collector occurs when the whole collector is at the
inlet fluid temperature. The actual useful energy
gain (Qu), is found by multiplying the collector heat
removal factor (FR) by the maximum possible useful
energy gain. This allows the rewriting of equation
(4):
Equation (7) is generally known as the “Hottel-
Whillier-Bliss equation” and it is a widely used
relationship for measuring collector energy gain.
A measure of a flat plate collector performance is
the collector efficiency (η) defined as the ratio of
the useful energy gain (Qu) to the incident solar
energy over a particular time period.
The instantaneous thermal efficiency of the
collector is given as
If it is assumed that FR, τ, α, UL are constants for a
given collector and flow rate, then the efficiency is
a linear function of the three parameters which
defines the operating condition: Solar irradiance (I),
Fluid inlet temperature (Ti) and Ambient air
temperature (Ta).
Thus, the performance of a Flat-Plate Collector can
be approximated by measuring these three
parameters in experiments. The result is a single
line (ΔT/I – Curve) shown in Figure 4.
474 Nalini Dasari, Dr. K. Sridhar
Fig. 4 Performance of a typical flat-plate solar
collector (ambient temperature 25°C)
The collector efficiency η is plotted against (Ti – Ta
)/I. The slope of this line (- FR UL) represents the
rate of heat loss from the collector.
There are two interesting points to be noted from fig
4.
1) The maximum collection efficiency, called the
optical efficiency. This occurs when the fluid inlet
temperature equals ambient temperature i.e., Ti = Ta.
For this condition, the ΔT/I value is zero and the
intercept is FR(τ α).
2) The other point of interest is the intercept with
the ΔT/I axis. This point of operation can be
reached when useful energy is no longer removed
from the collector, a condition that can happen if
fluid flow through the collector stops (power
failure). In this case, the optical energy coming in
must equal the heat loss, requiring that the
temperature of the absorber increase until this
balance occurs. This maximum temperature
difference or “stagnation temperature” is defined by
this point. For well-insulated collectors or
concentrating collectors the stagnation temperature
can reach very high levels causing fluid boiling and,
in the case of concentrating collectors, the absorber
surface can melt.
 International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences

www.ijetmas.com April 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476

CONCLUSION
A way to describe the thermal performance of a Flat
Plate Solar collector has been shown. The most
important measure is the collector efficiency. A
more precise and detailed analysis should include
the fact, that the overall heat loss coefficient (UL)
and other factors as the heat removal factor (FR) are
not constant values.
REFERENCES
[1] S.P. Sukhatme “Solar energy Principles of Thermal
Collection and Storage”, Tata McGraw-Hill Publication,
New Delhi.
[2] Cooper, P.I.; Dunkle, R.V., 1981 , “A non-linear
flatplate collector model”, Solar Energy Vol. 26, Issue 2
pp. 133-140.
[3] http://www.builditsolar.com/ References/
Measurements/CollectorPerformance.htm# Efficiency
[4] http://www.powerfromthesun.net/

475 Nalini Dasari, Dr. K. Sridhar