The Thermal Behavior of a Dual-Function Solar Collector Integrated with Building: An Experimental and Numerical Study on the Air Heating Mode

Jinwei Ma, Qiang Zhao, Yuehong Su, Jie Ji, Wei He, Zhongting Hu, Tingyong Fang and Haitao Wang
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Jinwei Ma: School of Environment and Energy Engineering, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei 230601, China
Qiang Zhao: School of Environment and Energy Engineering, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei 230601, China
Yuehong Su: Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
Jie Ji: Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Wei He: Department of Building Environment and Equipment, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China
Zhongting Hu: Department of Building Environment and Equipment, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China
Tingyong Fang: Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Intelligent Building & Building Energy Saving, Hefei 230601, China
Haitao Wang: Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Intelligent Building & Building Energy Saving, Hefei 230601, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-18

Abstract: This paper presented a novel solar collector that can work in air or water heating mode depending on the seasonal requirement. The dual-function solar collector (DFSC) integrated with a building as well as a reference building without the DFSC were built to test thermal behavior in passive air heating mode during winter. The buildings were equipped with an apparatus to control the room temperature. During the testing procedure, experimental study on the DFSC system was carried out under two conditions, where the indoor temperature was controlled and non-controlled. The results showed that the average temperature of the test room was about 3.43 °C higher than that of the reference room under the non-controlled condition. When the room temperature was controlled at 18 °C, the power consumptions of the test room and reference room were 4.322 kWh and 7.796 kWh, respectively. Consequently, the corresponding daily power consumption saved could reach up to around 3.5 kWh. Moreover, a dynamic numerical model on the DFSC along with the building was developed taking the fin effect of the Cu-tubes into account. The numerical results are found to be well consistent with the measured data. A parametric study on with/without Cu-tubes and depth of the air channel was carried out. It is found that the existing Cu-tubes functioning as water heating can enhance the air heating efficiency when the depth of air channel is of a suitable size.

Keywords: flat plate solar collector; dual-function; passive air heating; numerical modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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