Solar energy is a good option among renewable energy resources due to its easy availability and abundance. The simplest and most efficient way to utilize solar energy is to convert it into thermal energy and this can be done with the help of solar collectors. The thermal performance of such collectors is poor due to less heat transfer from the collector surface to air. In this work, experimenta...

An evaluation of a variety of efficient water heating strategies for an all-electric single family home located in a mixed-humid climate is conducted using numerical modeling. The strategies considered include various combinations of solar thermal, heat pump, and electric resistance water heaters. The numerical model used in the study is first validated against a year of field data obtained on ...

This paper presents the study of fluid flow and heat transfer in a plain rectangular duct of a solar air heater by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The effect of Reynolds number on heat transfer coefficient and friction factor was investigated. A commercial finite volume package ANSYS FLUENT 12.1 is used to analyze and visualize the nature of the flow across the duct of a solar air hea...

A box-type solar heater was designed, constructed, and used to determine the effect of solar heating on quality of domestic roof-harvested rainwater (DRHRW). During testing, naturally contaminated DRHRW was harvested in Ibadan, Nigeria, and released into the system at 93.96 Lh(-1) (2.61 × 10(-5) m(3) s(-1)) in a continuous flow process. Water temperatures at inlet, within the heating chamber, a...

Abstract—This paper deals with the analytical investigation of thermal and thermohydraulic performance of double flow solar air heaters with corrugated and flat plate absorber. A mathematical model of double flow solar air heater has been presented, and a computer program in C++ language is developed to estimate the outlet temperature of air for the evaluation of thermal and thermohydraulic eff...

Solar air heater is a type of heat exchanger which transforms solar radiation into heat energy. The thermal performance of conventional solar air heater has been found to be poor because of the low convective heat transfer coefficient from the absorber plate to the air. Use of artificial roughness on a surface is an effective technique to enhance the rate of heat transfer. A CFD-based investiga...

The present work represents a theoretical investigation of the performance of a solar air-heated desalination system using humidification-dehumidification (HDH) technique based on closed-water, open-air cycle under the geographical conditions of Dhahran (26.5°N, 50.2°E), Saudi Arabia. The HDH desalination system is suitable for small-scale decentralized fresh water production. It essentially co...