Thermal and Thermo-Hydraulic Performance of a Semi-Circular Solar Air Collector Utilizing an Innovative Configuration of Metal Foams

Basim A. R. Al-Bakri (), Ali M. Rasham and Ali O. Al-Sulttani
Additional contact information
Basim A. R. Al-Bakri: Department of Aeronautical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Al-Jadriya Campus, Baghdad 10071, Iraq
Ali M. Rasham: Department of Energy Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Al-Jadriya Campus, Baghdad 10071, Iraq
Ali O. Al-Sulttani: Department of Water Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Al-Jadriya Campus, Baghdad 10071, Iraq

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-35

Abstract: The enhancement of the thermal and thermo-hydraulic performance of a semi-circular solar air collector (SCSAC) is numerically investigated using porous semi-circular obstacles made of metal foam with and without longitudinal porous Y-shaped fins. Two 10 and 40 PPI porous material samples are examined. Three-dimensional models are built to simulate the performance of SCSAC: model (I) with clear air passage; model (II) with only metal foam obstacles, and model (III) with metal foam obstacles as well as porous Y-fins. COMSOL Multiphysics software version 6.2 based on finite element methodology is employed. A conjugate heat transfer with a (k-ε) turbulence model is selected to simulate both heat transfer and fluid flow across the entire computational domain. However, only the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) model of heat transfer is applied in the porous regions. The findings demonstrated that adding metal foam as the novel proposed configuration particularity of model (III) may enhance the thermal efficiency by about 30%, and the outlet air temperature may rise to 7% compared to other models. Also, the performance evaluation factor of this model is greater than one in all cases. Additionally, the thermal enhancement is accomplished by occupying only 5% of the air passage volume, thereby including an associated pressure drop of minimal magnitude.

Keywords: solar air collector; metal foams; semi-circular; computational fluid dynamics analysis; thermal performance enhancement; heat transfer augmentation (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: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/10/2501/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/10/2501/ (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:18:y:2025:i:10:p:2501-:d:1654412

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 ().