The effect of cooling water mass flow rate variations on the heat pipe solar collector performance

Abstract EN

The thermal performance of FPHPSC has been studied experimentally and theoretically.

The collector consists of copper absorber plate, single glass cover, glass wool insulation and aluminum case.

Ten wickless heat pipes of 12.7 mm inner diameter.

The experimental studies of collector performance have been performed on four different CWMFR (0.03, 0.04, 0.05 and 0.06) kg/s.

The relation between the amount of useful heat, instantaneous collector efficiency and solar intensity is discussed.

The collector are tested under the climate condition of Kut city (32.6 latitude and 45.7 longitude).

It is investigated that the increasing of CWMFR increase the efficiency of the collector.

The percentage increase in the efficiency of the solar collector is in order of (13%), when the cooling water mas flow rate changes from 0.03 kg/sec to 0.06 kg/sec at (45o) collector tilt angle.

A computer program based on VISUAL BASIC language (version 6) used for the theoretical analysis.

The experimental results are in agreement reasonably with the theoretical predictions