Experimental and Computational Analysis of Aluminum-Coated Dimple and Plain Tubes in Solar Water Heater System

Debabrata Barik (), Arun M., Muhammad Ahsan Saeed () and Tholkappiyan Ramachandran
Additional contact information
Debabrata Barik: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore 641021, India
Arun M.: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore 641021, India
Muhammad Ahsan Saeed: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea
Tholkappiyan Ramachandran: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain 15551, United Arab Emirates

Energies, 2022, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Solar power is often regarded as one of the most promising forms of alternative energy since it is both sustainable and renewable. It is difficult to utilize and benefit from solar energy in residential and industrial applications because of the intermittent nature of its supply. A solar-based water heating system is efficient for using solar thermal conversion, the simplest and most successful method of turning solar energy into thermal energy. In this research, the performance analysis of Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors (PTSCs) with aluminum-coated copper dimple tubes was computationally and experimentally analyzed. For computational analysis, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool was used. For experimental analysis, aluminum-coated dimple tubes were used to pass the base fluid (water) in it while varying the mass flow rate from 1.0 to 3.0 kg/min at steps of 0.5 kg/min to examine the effect of dimple texturing and aluminum coating on the performance of the solar water heater. The parameters, such as thermal efficiency, friction factor, convective heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, and effectiveness of the PTSC, were analyzed, and we found remarkable improvement towards high conversion efficiency. At a flow rate of 2.5 kg/min, the thermal efficiency was improved by about 36%, the friction factor increased by about 0.32%, the convective heat transfer coefficient was improved by 1150 W/m 2 K, Nusselt number was improved by about 53.8 and the effectiveness was enhanced by 0.4. The simulation results were compared with the experimental results, and the deviation was about ±3.8%, which may be due to an error in the instrument as well as environmental conditions during the analysis. The outcome of results can be used for real-life applications in industrial water heating and domestic water heating especially, the places exposed to low solar radiation intensity throughout the year.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; solar energy; aluminum-coated tube; plain tube; parabolic trough solar collector (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/1/295/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/1/295/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2022:i:1:p:295-:d:1016719

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().