AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON STATIONARY V TROUGH & PARABOLIC SOLAR WATER COLLECTOR

Journal for Research | Volume 03| Issue 02 | April 2017 ISSN: 2395-7549

An Experimental Investigation on Stationary V Trough & Parabolic Solar Water Collector P.L.Navaneethakrishnan Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering Adithya Institute of Technology,Coimbatore

Bibin P Mathew UG Student Department of Mechanical Engineering Adithya Institute of Technology, Coimbatore

Liju joseph UG Student Department of Mechanical Engineering Adithya Institute of Technology, Coimbatore

Muhammed mashood T UG Student Department of Mechanical Engineering Adithya Institute of Technology, Coimbatore

Musfar P UG Student Department of Mechanical Engineering Adithya Institute of Technology, Coimbatore

Abstract Now a day, plenty of hot water is used for domestic, commercial and industrial purposes. Various resources i.e. coal, diesel, gas etc, are used to heat water and sometimes for steam production. Solar energy is the main alternative to replace the conventional energy sources. There are various types of solar water heater system available in the commercial market to fulfill different customers demand, such as flat plate collector, concentrating collector, evacuated tube collector and integrated collector storage.

A cost effective cum easy fabricated V-trough solar water heater system using forced circulation system is proposed. Integrating the solar absorber with the easily fabricated V-trough reflector can improve the performance of solar water heater system. In this paper, experiments on the efficiency were conducted for a week during which the atmospheric conditions were almost uniform and data was collected from the collector. The experimental result has shown very promising results in both thermal efficiency of V-trough reflector & parabolic solar water heater.

Keywords: Forced circulation system, Global solar radiation, Parabolic solar water heater, Thermal efficiency, V-trough solar water heater _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.

INTRODUCTION

Energy resources are classified as two types: renewable resources, including solar energy, wind power, hydraulic energy, geothermal energy and biomass energy, and non-renewable resources that cannot be restocked, such as petrol, nuclear energy, coal and natural gas. The world’s energy usage from non-renewable properties adds up to 91.88% while 8.12% of the energy is produced from renewable resources .Research involving inexpensive and fresh sources of energy such as solar energy, recently the use with solar energy for electricity generation, air conditioning and water heating has grown-up. In the domestic applications, households consume energy by using air conditioning, heating, water heating, lighting and other uses.

The aim of the project is to utilize the renewable energy unused in a large amount. One of the most important renewable-energy resources is the solar energy which sun emits to the earth. The solar energy can be utilized to a higher amount in areas having tough climatic conditions like India. The sun emits solar radiation as much as 1395 W/m2 to consume this energy solar collector is used. The most financial and efficient solar collector is the flat plate collector which absorbs solar radiation, and the heat is conveyed over the water inside the tubes of the collector. The performance of the solar water heater is increased by several augmentation techniques like absorber plate coating, glazing glass types and thermal insulation etc. Lot researches are being carried out for increasing the thermal performance of heat exchanger. Yet there are still few research works to be carried out to increase the thermal performance in solar water heater. The novelty of our work is to couple a V-trough reflector to the solar absorber to increase the thermal efficiency of the system & compare with the parabolic solar water heater.

II. FABRICATION & EXPERIMENTAL SETUP Solar water heater is used from past decades but in this study effect of V-through, a flat plate collector water storage system on productivity of a solar water heater will be analyzed, that’s why a V-through the flat plate collector water storage system will be selected for study. Figure 1 shows the solar water heater.

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An Experimental Investigation on Stationary V Trough & Parabolic Solar Water Collector (J4R/ Volume 03 / Issue 02 / 010)

Fig. 1: Experimental Setup

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

cold water tank pipes hot water tank evacuated tubes metal sheets Working principle of solar water heater

Operation as it consists of a unit with dual operation, to absorb solar radiation and to preserve the solar heat, instead of the absorbing solar radiation and the heating only of the circulating fluid. When solar radiation from the sun is absorbed by the blackened absorber plate, it is changed to heat. The heat is shifted to the flow tubes by conduction. The water through the flow tubes is in turn heated by the convection process between the tubes and the water grains. The heated water becomes warmer and less dense than the water in the storing tank. These density difference results in flexibility force, often referred to as the thermosyphon head which makes a continuous convective movement of water from the bottom of the tank to the bottom of the collector, up through the collector flow tubes, and back into the top of the tank.

V-trough collector Similar to other type of forced circulation system, the novel V-trough SWH system mainly consists of stationary V-trough collector, pump circulation system and storage tank. The proposed V-trough SWH with high thermal efficiency can be easily constructed and installed in the rural area without the requirement of sophisticated equipment.

The prototype of V-trough SWH system was constructed in the Adithya institute of technology campus that is located at Coimbatore with latitude 11.1134째 N and longitude of 77.0364째 E. In this system, the stationary V-trough collector was designed to concentrate the sunlight onto the absorber in order to effectively convert solar energy into thermal energy. The following describe the details of each component of the prototype V-trough SWH system and how these components were constructed.

The solar collector is made from two major parts: a flat absorber plate and V-trough reflector. The V-trough reflector was constructed using two rectangular face SS304 reflectors with a dimension of 150mm (width) X 2000 mm (length) X5 mm (thickness) each and inclined at the angle of 60째 relative to the absorber plate. To optimize the optical performance, the V-trough reflector was aligned horizontally along east-west direction. Ideally the V-trough reflector should be south facing and inclined at the angle of equal to the local latitude. However, in order to simplify the mechanical structure of the prototype with a very minimum effect to the overall performance, we decided to place the V-trough reflector in horizontal since the local latitude is only 11째 N.

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An Experimental Investigation on Stationary V Trough & Parabolic Solar Water Collector (J4R/ Volume 03 / Issue 02 / 010)

Fig. 2: Experimental Setup

III. RESULT AND DISSECTION Measurements of the incident solar radiation and other system parameters were carried out at intervals of one hour from 9:00 A.M to 16:00 P.M every day. Graph 1-4 show the daily average values of three temperature of various points and global solar radiation from 6 March 2017 to 9March 2017 between the time intervals of 9:00 am to 16:00 pm.

The observations of the 50 L capacity of the water tank and 5 L water continuously removed from the storage tank at one-hour interval period. Temperature measurement of the set up was carried out for full day during whole study. Reflectors (SS304) are used to improve thermal efficiency of V- through solar water collectors.

Observations during Experiment In this study, different observations are noted. All readings are surmised in a graphical form with necessary data. Nomenclatures are shown, used in the observation's tables:  I Solar radiation - W/m²  T1 Temperature of inlet to ETC of oC  T2 Temperature of outside the setup (after ETC tube) oC  T3 Ambient Temperature oC Thermal Analysis of Solar water heater In this section temperature measurements were done at various locations of experimental setup. And show these measurements in graphs for all experiments conditions. K-Type thermocouples are used for temperature recordings at 3 locations in Experimental Set-Up.

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An Experimental Investigation on Stationary V Trough & Parabolic Solar Water Collector (J4R/ Volume 03 / Issue 02 / 010)

Trough solar water collector:

Fig. 3: three temperature of various points on 6th & 7th March 2017 between the time intervals of 9:00 am to 16:00 pm

Fig. 4: global solar radiation & efficiency on 6th & 7th March 2017 between the time intervals of 9:00 am to 16:00 pm

Parabolic solar water collector:

Fig. 5: three temperature of various points on 8th & 9th March 2017 between the time intervals of 9:00 am to 16:00 pm

Fig. 6: global solar radiation & efficiency on 8th & 9th March 2017 between the time intervals of 9:00 am to 16:00 pm

IV. CONCLUSION 

This project is giving the idea for developing the solar water heater without using the electric power and other resources, To understanding the efficiency comparison of V trough and parabolic collector.

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An Experimental Investigation on Stationary V Trough & Parabolic Solar Water Collector (J4R/ Volume 03 / Issue 02 / 010)

  

Finally the result is more efficiency are V trough when compared to parabolic collector.

The project is investigated the material properties are described and heat absorbing capacity of various material are refer.

The project is developed at very easily at simple construction and low cost product.

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Jaisankar S, Ananth J, Thulasi S, Jayasuthakar ST, Sheeba KN. A comprehensive review on solar water heaters. Renewable and sustainable Energy Reviews 2011; 15, 3045–3050.

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