Effect of depth ratio on the thermal performance of double flow packed bed solar air heater

In this paper double flow packed bed solar air heater has been investigated theoretically. The effect of air mass flow rate, porosity and different depth ratios at study state conditions on the thermal performance of a double flow packed bed solar air heater is found by using the alternative simulation system. Comparisons between the measured thermal and effective thermal efficiency of the double flow packed bed and double flow without packed bed solar air heaters were also presented. The problem has been solved by the Finite Difference Method. The results showed that the thermal efficiency increases by 78.8 % in double flow mode with porous media than double flow without porous media at the mass flow rate of 0.05 kg/s at the bed porosity of 92%. KeywordsPacked bed; Porosity; Heat Transfer; Thermal efficiency; double flow solar air heater a corresponding author: [email protected] Tel.: +91-9418662007; fax: +91-1972-223834.