An Experimental Comparison of the Performance of Various Evacuated Tube Solar Collector Designs

Sana Said, Sofiene Mellouli, Talal Alqahtani, Salem Algarni, Ridha Ajjel, Kaouther Ghachem and Lioua Kolsi
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Sana Said: Laboratory of Energy and Materials (LabEM-LR11ES34), Higher School of Science and Technology of Hammam Sousse (ESSTHS), University of Sousse, Street Lamine Abbassi, Hammam Sousse 4011, Tunisia
Sofiene Mellouli: Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Jazan University, Jazan 45142, Saudi Arabia
Talal Alqahtani: Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia
Salem Algarni: Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia
Ridha Ajjel: Laboratory of Energy and Materials (LabEM-LR11ES34), Higher School of Science and Technology of Hammam Sousse (ESSTHS), University of Sousse, Street Lamine Abbassi, Hammam Sousse 4011, Tunisia
Kaouther Ghachem: Department of Industrial Engineering and Systems, College of Engineering, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia
Lioua Kolsi: Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 55476, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: An experimental study was carried out to assess the thermal performance of a few evacuated tube solar collectors (ETSCs) for water heating. The thermal performance of two kinds of ETSC (heat pipe ETSC and direct-flow ETSC) was investigated using an indoor experimental apparatus in lab testing conditions with a solar simulator. Several experimental tests were carried out for the heat pipe ETSC system under different operating conditions, such as the solar intensity (300, 500, and 1000 W/m 2 ) and the tilt angle (0°, 30° and 90°) of the ETSC and the water flow rate (0.6, 1.2, and 2.4 LPM). Moreover, four configurations of direct-flow ETSC (U tube, double U tubes, coaxial tubes, and helical tube) were examined and compared to the conventional heat pipe ETSC. The results of the experiment proved that the ETSC system presents a great performance at higher solar irradiance and lower water flow rates, and the experiments indicated that with a 30° tilt angle, the ETSC reaches the maximum thermal efficiency of 36%. Furthermore, compared to the conventional heat pipe ETSC and the other proposed configurations of direct-flow ETSCs, the helical tube-based ETSC has a better thermal efficiency, 69%, and can be considered a greater potential heat exchanger that can be integrated in ETSCs. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time this helical tube type been integrated into the ETSC and tested under these conditions. TRANSLATE with x English Arabic Hebrew Polish Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak Czech Italian Slovenian Danish Japanese Spanish Dutch Klingon Swedish English Korean Thai Estonian Latvian Turkish Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian French Malay Urdu German Maltese Vietnamese Greek Norwegian Welsh Haitian Creole Persian TRANSLATE with COPY THE URL BELOW Back EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal Back

Keywords: evacuated tube collector; heat pipe; coaxial tubes; U tube; helical tube (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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