Solar Aluminum Tubular Air Heater

As fossil fuels are depleting very fastly from this world, there is a need to preserve these resources and make use of renewable energy resources like solar energy. This demand has been sufficed by many, especially those in developing countries.

The heat pump laboratory has solar collectors where different experiments are going on. Solar Aluminium Tubular Air Heater is an integral part of the research work that is going on.

It has been developed by introducing many important modifications to the previous model of the same but 5 meters square area.

The main purpose behind these is to get a cost-efficient system in terms of cost, weight, and higher efficiency.

The concerned solar collector aims to important efficiency of about 75% with the temperatures attainable up to 120 degC. This can be used for drying or heating purpose.

The objective of this project is to find pressure drop which has to be minimum so that it accounts for minimum losses and hence becomes more cost-efficient.

Low weight, reduced material loss, and higher efficiency are the desired outcomes of this model. The pressure drop reduction has been compared with the pressure of the previous model and calculations are checked with MATLAB.

So many kinds of literature on solar collectors are studied and the information gathered from the literature was used for testing different types of models. This was done with the help of pressure calculations.

Using pressure drop formula for laminar and turbulent flow pressure drop across the collector, with the help of MATLAB and finding rate through blower fans attached.

The pressure is calculated by using Darcy’s formula depending upon Reynold’s number, deciding the nature of airflow.

Along with the pressure losses due to friction, major losses like entry/exit losses, sudden expansion have been noted. Hence we get a reduced value of 17.48 mm of water pressure drop across the collector.

MATLAB software has been used to calculate the pressure drop between any two points on the system. This software has many applications like performing, documenting, and sharing all the calculations and the design work.

Solar energy has one thing that has remained an intriguing topic since the days of yore. Using heat transfer and fluid mechanics concepts, we have explored to find the desired outcome model.

The conventional source of energy are fast depleting and this leads us to use non-conventional sources of energy like solar energy.

The idea projected here to prepare the collector is to ensure the cost-efficiency of the system which implies a low-cost model and low weight model that saves energy and provides optimum usable energy.

A low-cost and low-weight but higher efficiency build Solar Aluminum Tubular Air Heater is developed at the heat pump laboratory at IIT Bombay.

This roof solar collector can be used for various applications like agro produce drying, drying of wood in timber processing, pulp industry and detergent powder industry, room heating in cold regions, cloth drying in laundries, etc.

It also can be used in pasteurizing, drying, bleaching, pickling.

As non-renewable resources are depleting fast or the demand for alternate energy sources like renewable source such as solar energy are slowly establishing their network, there is nothing to defy the fact that solar energy holds good potential in the present arena as well as future to conserve the energy and convert it into a usable form.

Hence, the future awaits technology blending with solar energy and giving much more innovative and cost-effective solar collectors.