Journal of Renewable and New Energy

Simulation and sensitivity analysis of flat plate solar collector incorporating aluminum absorber

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mohammad bagher Hamidi 1
mojtaba vafaeenezhad 2
Behzad Azizimehr 3
abdolrazagh Kaabi Nejadian 4

1 MSc,, Energy Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 Ph.D. Student, Islamic Azad University Semnan Branch, Mechanical Engineering. Semnan Province, Iran

3 Ph.D. Student, Islamic Azad University West Tehran Branch in the field of the mechanical engineer. Tehran Province, Iran

4 Assistant Professor, New Energy Organization, Ministry of Power (Iranian Society of Heating, Refrigeration,, Air conditioning Engineers)

https://doi.org/10.22034/jrenew.2025.208791
Abstract
Nowadays, with the increasing consumption of energy, the use of renewable energy has become particularly important. Among the renewable energy resources, solar energy has significant potential due to its advantages like a lower price, stability, etc. One of the simplest and most effective means of collecting solar energy is the flat panel solar collector. In this project, a new model of the solar collector was simulated using Fluent software. The effect of important parameters in the design of the collector such as absorption plate thickness, tube diameter, and the number of tubes are evaluated. The simulation results show that increasing the diameter of the tubes, increasing the number of tubes which means reducing their distance, and increasing the thickness of the absorber plate all improve the efficiency of the flat plate solar collector system. To compare the performance of this type of geometry with the conventional collectors, another type of geometry for the solar collector in which half of the tubes are at the top of the absorber plate is simulated in Fluent software. The results of comparing these two types of geometry show that the geometry of the first type has an energy efficiency of 59.63% in the best simulation model and the geometry of the second type in which half of the tubes are above the absorber plate has an efficiency of 67.79%.

Keywords

solar energy
solar collector
absorber plate
renewable energy

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 05 June 2022
  • Revise Date 01 February 2023
  • Accept Date 25 February 2023

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