Applied Thermal Engineering 25 (2005) 13491362

www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Eect of packing in the airow passage on the performance of a solar air-heater with conical concentrator
_ Inci Turk Togrul *, Dursun Pehlivan
Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Frat University, 23279 Elazg, Turkey Received 11 October 2003; accepted 31 August 2004

Abstract In this work, a selective absorbing surface and packing in the two-pass airow passage of the absorbing tube were used and their eects on the eciencies of a new solar air heater with a conical concentrator tracking the sun from sunrise to sunset were investigated. Aluminium wire mesh with a variety of folding number was tested as the packing material. The results were compared to those obtained with empty absorbing tube. Beside these, various aspects of the heat and uid ow in the absorbing tube as inuencing the system performance were searched by evaluating friction factors, pumping power, convective heat transfer coecients and Colburn factors for empty and packed airow passage of the absorbing tube. Although, incorporation independently of selective surface or packing material resulted the eciency of the system to increase considerably, the highest eciencies were obtained by using both. It was found that the airside heat transfer coecient has been about 26 W/m2 K for empty airow passage of the absorbing tube. By using aluminium wire mesh packing, the heat transfer coecient increased regularly with increasing number of folds of the wire mesh packing and reached to 240 W/m2 K in the case of 14 folds. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Conical concentrator; Solar air heater; Selective surface; Packing; Heat transfer

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 424 2370000/6360; fax: +90 424 2415526. _ E-mail addresses: incitogrul@yahoo.com, itogrul@rat.edu.tr (I.Turk Togrul), dpehlivan@rat.edu.tr (D. Pehlivan).

1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2004.08.015

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Nomenclature Aa Af Ar Cp DH dw e f FR G h H I kf m Pr rH Re Ta Tf Ti To DT Qu UL W Greek a aa e c g lf q qf s view area of the concentrator, m2 frontal area, m2 receiver area, m2 specic heat capacity of the air, W/m2 K hydraulic diameter, m wire diameter of the mesh, m roughness height, m friction coecient, dimensionless collector eciency factor, dimensionless air ux, kg/h m2 lm heat transfer coecient, W/m2 K height of airow channel, m direct solar radiation, W/m2 thermal conductivity of the air, W/mK mass ow rate of air, kg/s Prandtl number, dimensionless hydraulic radius in the case of packed channel Reynolds number, dimensionless ambient temperature, C local air temperature, C inlet air temperature, C outlet air temperature, C air temperature rise (To Ti), C heat transfer rate, W heat loss coecient, W/m2 C wide of airow channel, m symbols absorbtivity of the absorber angle between the roughs porosity fraction of the radiation reected on the absorbing surface of the receiver collector eciency viscosity of air, kg/ms reectivity of the concentrator density of air, kg/m3 transmittance of the transparent cover

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1. Introduction The suitable design of solar air-heaters for high-temperature applications have been the subject of many theoretical and experimental investigations. Several improvements including a nnedchannel air heater [1,2], a corrugated-absorber plate air heater [3], a jet plate air heater [4], a packed-bed or porous absorber air heater [58] have been proposed in these studies. In this subject, interest has been focused on the heat transfer to/from uid owing through packed beds by numerous investigators [911], because the large surface area of the packing material and the turbulence producing airow path through the bed provide increased heat transfer. However, a higher heat transfer coecient to the owing air in any solar air heater is always associated with higher friction losses in the system and increasing pumping cost of the air through the bed. On the other hand, the pressure drop across the packed bed should be large enough to ensure good ow distribution across the bed. Therefore, a compromise between these two factors must be established in designing a cost eective solar air heater. Among these packing, glass beads [12], iron turnings [13], crushed glass [14], slit and expanded aluminium foils [8,15] and wire mesh screens [1618] are widely studied in the solar air heaters. Such porous packing is also extensively used in some industrially important systems. Typical examples include: chemical reactors, separation devices and compact heat exchangers as well as heat storage units. Recently, researchers have used wire screen matrices as absorbing porous media for directly incident solar radiation in the solar air heater duct to improve its performance. In such systems, the radiation penetrates deeply into this matrix and in turn gets absorbed. The high heat transfer area to volume ratio for the air owing through this matrix promotes heat transfer capability. For example, Sharma [18] and Ahmad [16] have used wire mesh screen matrices arranged in cross ow systems, whereas Prasad ve Saini [17] have studied the unidirectional ow arrangement for solar air heaters. These studies have indicated that such air heaters have superior performance as compared to that of at plate collectors. In the last decade, much attention has been given to concentrating solar collectors, which are capable of reaching higher temperatures compared to at plate collectors. Although there are many studies on their extensive usage in liquid heating, studies directed to the subjects concerning their air heating performance are rare [19,20]. In this study, therefore, the eciency of a solar collector designed with a new concept such as to include a conical concentrator and a cylindrical absorber with the options of inside packing or outside selective surface was investigated. It was envisaged that, with the help of inside packing of aluminium wire mesh with a variety of folds, the potency of such collector to attain high collector eciencies and thus air ows at higher temperatures than the case of empty cross section of the absorbing tube could be lighted. This investigation also requires exploration of the heat and uid ow phenomena in the absorbing tube by evaluating friction factors, pumping power and convective heat transfer coecients and comparisons for the alternative cases and may bring into light the factors to construct an economically viewable solar air collector for high temperature applications.

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2. Analysis The performance of a concentrating collector operating under assumed steady-state conditions can be described by the following expression [21].   Qu Ar T i T a F R csae q F R U L g 1 Aa I Aa I The term, (csa)eq represents the optical properties of the system. The intercept factor, c, is dened as the reected fraction of the incident radiation on the absorbing surface of the receiver. s is the transmittivity of transparent cover. a and q are the absorptivity and the reectivity of the absorber and concentrator, respectively. If FR, UL and (csa)eq are not very strong functions of operating parameters like mass ow rate, intensity of solar radiation, ambient temperature and velocity variations, Eq. (1) indicates that a plot of eciency against (Ti Ta)/I will result in a straight line whose slope and ordinate axisintercept are FRULAr/A and FR(csa)eq, respectively. Furthermore, the performance can be expressed by another equation containing the temperature gain acquired in the collector. g mC p T o T i Aa I 2

Thus Eqs. (1) and (2) can be represented on a single diagram having the same quantities as abscissa and ordinate [22]. The contribution from the packing placed in the airow passage to the total heat transfer area is determined with the following relation, representing the surface area of the wire screen matrix [23]: A 4Af L1 e dw 3

where Af, L, e and dw are frontal area, length of the duct, porosity and wire diameter of the wire mesh packing, respectively. The forced convective heat transfer coecients for empty or packed situation of airow channel can be found respectively by Dittus-Boelter and DixonCresswell equation [11,24]. h 0:023 h 0:2 kf Re0:8 Pr0:4 DH H 4 5

kf Re0:8 Pr1=3 DH H

Average values of the heat transfer coecient so determined can be used to evaluate the Stanton number and J-factor. Stanton number : Colburn J factor : St h qVC p 6 7

J H StPr2=3

_ I.Turk Togrul, D. Pehlivan / Applied Thermal Engineering 25 (2005) 13491362 Table 1 Error sources in the system Parameters Errors in temperature measurements: Thermocouple errors Errors due to tting elements Measurement errors Total potential error in recording each temperature = 0.3670.567 C Mean error in determining times of periodical temperature measurements = 0.1 min Errors in ow rate measurements Error due to anemometer Error due to leakage Total potential error in ow rate measurements = 0.1414 m/s Error in solar energy measurements: Error due to piranometer Errors due to tting elements Total potential error in solar energy measurements = 0.1 W/m2 Total potential error due to sun tracking system = 0.5 Other errors = 0.10.2% Error

1353

0.250.5 C 0.1 C 0.25 C

0.1 m/s 0.1 m/s

0.01 W/m2 0.1 W/m2

Because the accuracy of the temperature measurements are main error sources (Table 1) in the results, error estimation depend mostly on mean reading errors of the thermocouples at two points and the numerical accuracy of the other parameters. Considering the relative errors in the individual factors denoted by xn, error estimation was made using the following equation and they have changed % 0.8391.138. h i1=2 2 2 2 W x1 x2 xn 8

3. Experimental The reector or concentrator of the conical solar collector shown in Fig. 1 was constructed from 0.5 mm thickness stainless steel sheets and mounted on the main iron pipe outer surface of which painted with black collector paint. This assembly was placed on a four-wheeled table by means of two arms, which could also serve to set the collector tilting. The important size parameters of collector are shown in Table 2. The copper absorber tube placed on the focal axis of the concentrator was arranged as a twopass exchanger. Outer surface of this tube is also painted with black collector paint and cupped with a transparent glass tube. The system is able to rotate via two satellite antenna motors to face conical concentrator continuously towards the sun. The motors driven by two photocells located on the head of the

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Fig. 1. Solar air heater with conical concentrator. 1, photocells; 2, absorber; 3, conical concentrator; 4, conical concentrator supporting frame; 5, tracking unit; 6, temperature measurement unit; 7, the arms for setting slope; 8, main air ow tube; 9, moving arm and driving system for tracking; 10, collector table; 11, wheels.

Table 2 The characteristics of conical solar collector Ar Aa b (Concentrator angle of view) Collector uid ow rate, m Collector tilt, h Absorber Absorber inner diameter Absorber outer diameter Length of absorber Transparent cover Cover inner diameter Cover outer diameter Black collector paint Concentrator c Selective surface Selective surface thickness Selective surface features 0.295 m2 2.22 m2 76 70 kg/h 28.4 Copper 100 mm 102 mm 92 cm Bore silicate glass (nd = 1.473, s = 0.9183, qd = 0.0697, a = 0.012) 114 mm 120 mm a = 0.98, e = 0.88 (csa)e = 0.9012 1810 CrNi stainless steel 1 [25] Copper tube covered with nickel plated and chromium coloured sheet 0.2 mm a = 0.96, e = 0.12, (csa)e = 0.884

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absorber sustained the movement and maintained tracking from sunrise to sunset. All the details of the solar air heater are given elsewhere [26,27]. The experiments on the performance of solar air heater were carried out from July to Septem ber in 1999 (Elazg/Turkey, local latitude is 38.4). The tests have been carried out according to the international standard methods [28]. The solar air heater was oriented to south and tilted so as to adjust an angle of 28.4 between main tube and horizontal surface (local latitude 38.4). The incident solar radiation was measured with a KippZonen solarimeter connected to a recorder. The air was supplied with a small blower at the inlet port of the main iron pipe and its ow rate was measured with an anemometer at the exit, as well as wind speeds. Inlet and outlet air temperatures and ambient temperatures were measured at 30 min intervals by Fe-constantan thermocouples connected to a multi channel-temperature measurement unit. Air was passed through the absorber at 70 kg/h in all the experiments, since the previous work has shown that maximum eciencies was obtained at this ow rate.

4. Results and discussion 4.1. Collector eciency Typical hourly values of global and direct solar radiation recorded with pyranometer and ambient temperatures between 8 a.m. and p.m. are shown in Fig. 2. This gure indicates that the direct and global solar radiations are at their highest values at noon (at about 12.30 p.m.) as expected. Firstly, use of selective surface to increase forced convection eciency of the conical solar collector was tested for the empty airow passage. For this purpose, a sheet of selective surface, produced specially for at plate solar collectors with the properties given in Table 3, was wrapped tightly not leaving any space around the copper absorbing tube, whose outer surface was painted
1200 100 90 1000

800

70 60

600

50 40

400

30

200

Wind Speed=1.03-2.72 m/s

Global radiation Direct Radiation Ambient Temperature

20 10 0

0
08 :0 0 08 :3 0 09 :0 0 09 :3 0 10 :0 0 10 :3 0 11 :0 0 11 :3 0 12 :0 0 12 :3 0 13 :0 0 13 :3 0 14 :0 0 14 :3 0 15 :0 0 15 :3 0 16 :0 0 16 :3 0 17 :0 0

Daytimes

Fig. 2. Variation of solar radiation and ambient temperatures.

Ambient Temperature (OC)

80

Solar Radiation(W/m 2)

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Table 3 The values of system parameters Parameter DH of absorber, (m) Air velocity in absorber (m/s) Porosity, e Friction factor, f Pumping power, W Heat transfer area (m2) g (for black painted absorber) Improvement in the eciency (%) g (for selective absorber) Improvement in the eciency (%) UL h (for selective absorber) JH (for selective absorber) Without packing 0.0606 6.1572 1.000 0.00175 0.078 0.289 0.503 0.5332 6 152.68 26.286 0.0031 Number of folds in the packing 6 0.0600 6.2692 0.982 0.02047 0.959 0.512 0.6011 19.5 0.6475 28.7 144.57 232.37 0.0244 10 0.0599 6.3018 0.977 0.02625 1.246 0.573 0.6811 35.4 0.7733 53.7 131.93 235.82 0.0255 14 0.0597 6.335 0.972 0.03324 1.60 0.635 0.8045 60.0 0.8459 68.2 125.83 239.66 0.0264

black. The conversion eciency of incident solar radiation into heat energy in the collector was computed by using data from the daytime measurements between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the symmetrical times to the solar noon. The changes in the instantaneous eciencies with (Ti Ta)/I values are shown in Fig. 3 for black coloured or selective surface absorber. The lines in this graph are drawn using regression equations, which express best the experimental data. As can be seen in this gure, forced convection eciency increases slightly from 50% to 53% by using selective surface. This may be explained by lower heat losses from the absorber surface to the ambient due to the smaller emissivity of the selective surface and is indicated by the lower slope of the line for the selective surface than that for the black absorbing surface. The enhancements in the air temperature with direct radiation for both kinds of absorbing surface are shown in Fig. 4. Each line in this gure was drawn using the best equation from linear regression representing the whole day data. This gure depicting the dierences in the air temperatures occurring in the system versus direct radiation values shows that air temperatures increase more when selective surface absorber
0.60 0.50 0.40

0.30 0.20 Selective surface 0.10 0.00 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 Black painted absorber

(Ti-Ta)/I

Fig. 3. The changes in the g versus ((Ti Ta)/I) for black painted absorber and selective absorber.

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35 30

1357

Temperature Rise (OC)

25 20 15 10 5 0 0 200 400 600 800

Selective surface Black painted surface

Direct Radiation

Fig. 4. The variation of DT with the incident solar radiation for black painted absorber and selective absorber.

is used and the dierences between DT values remain nearly constant at each value of direct solar radiation. From the results mentioned above, it is clear that usage of an absorber with selective surface that reduce heat losses to the ambient in the solar air heater with conical concentrator is not solely enough in eciency enhancements. Subsequently, packing was also placed into the airow channel under the absorber to acquire further enhancements in the eciencies of the collector by increasing the contacting surface of the absorber, thus enabling to transfer more heat to the air. The aluminium wire mesh used for this purpose was folded so as to contain 6, 10 or 14 number of folds and was placed into both of the air passages of the absorber (Fig. 5). Then, the tests with the solar air heater have involved investigations separately or together under the inuences of the packing porosity and the kind of absorbing surface on the system performance. The changes in the air outlet temperatures with the day times are given in Fig. 6 for both kinds of absorbing surface and various number of folds in the packing. In the case of selective surface, air outlet temperatures are higher compared to the tests undertaken with black absorbing surface, and increase considerably with the number of folds in the packing as is seen in this gure. The

Fig. 5. Folding and inserting the aluminium wire mesh into the absorber tube.

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Fig. 6. The changes in the air outlet temperatures with the day times for both kinds of absorbing surface and various folding number of packing of at 70 kg/h air rate.

maximum air temperatures are reached between 13.00 and 14.00 period of the day. At this period, air outlet temperatures may exceed 83 C when the selective surface and the wire mesh packing of 14 folds are used together. This temperature could not be reached with none of at-plate solar collectors used in low temperature applications [7,29,30]. And this temperature dierence is about twofolds of those obtained with the packed at plate solar air heaters [29,31,32]. The eciencies and corresponding % improvements are given in Table 3 for both kinds of absorbing surfaces and various folds of packing. Considerable increases have been realized in the eciencies by increasing number of folds in the packing inserted into the absorbing tube. This can be explained by increasing contact points of the packing on the inner surface of the absorber, which extends the heat transfer by conduction and enlarges the surface area exposing to the air. More heat is transferred into the air and the eciency of the system increases with the heat transfer surface area at the same level of incident radiation. Use of selective surface together with the packing provides further improvements in the eciencies as the heat losses from the absorber to the ambient are reduced with the selective surface. Consequently, the typical 50% eciency of the solar collector with black painted absorber increases to 80% by using 14 folds packing in the absorber tube. In the case of same packing and selective surface, this becomes 84%. The eciencies reported for the packed at plate collectors are seen to lye between 60% and 70% values [19,29,32,33]. Also, the maximum improvement in the eciency of the present solar collector with black painted absorber has been 60% by using 14 folds packing in the absorber tube and reached to 68% in the case of same packing and selective surface. In order to give a complete explanation of the eect of packing material and selective surface on the system performance, these improvements can also be investigated with respect to the operating parameters of the present solar collector such as collector eciency and heat loss factors which are

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a measure of the lost fraction of the heat converted from incident solar radiation on the absorber surface. Table 3 shows the changes in the heat loss coecients with the folds of packing in the solar air heater operating under forced convection conditions of the air. In relation with the results depicted in the eciency values, important reductions in the heat loss coecients occur when wire mesh packing is placed into the absorbing tube. This reduction gets more as the folds of packing are increased or its porosity decreased. Here, it may be envisaged that the eective heat transfer from the absorbing surface to the packing and then into the air prevents excessive increase of the surface temperature of the absorber. Thus, heat loss factor UL reduces, as the temperature dierence between the absorber surface and ambient becomes less. In spite of considerable improvements in the performance of the present solar air heater, its heat loss coecient UL is still higher than those encountered in at plate collectors. This may have resulted from the system geometry. Because the concentrator and absorber are congruent each other at the narrow section of the cone where the inside air stream leaves the absorber and upstream part of the main tube at its maximum temperature, the wind or ambient air entering the cone necessarily engages here for a while transferring more heat compared to the at plate collectors. 4.2. Fluid and heat ow in conical collector In order to understand the role of uid and heat ow in the eciency enhancement of the solar air heater, pressure drop over the system has been measured experimentally and also heat transfer coecients and Colburn J (JH) factors describing heat ow in packed channels have been evaluated for all the individual cases. Pressure drop was measured in the cases of both free and packed airow channel by connecting an inclined manometer between the points corresponding to the air inlet and outlet ports on the main tube. These values were used to calculate Fanning friction factors and pumping power requirement for passing the air through the channel. Because of intensive turbulence in the airow channel, it may be assumed that the temperature dierences between the air and inner absorber surface are not signicant. Then, heat transfer area from Eq. (3), convective heat transfer coecient from Eq. (4,5) and Colburn J (JH) factors from Eq. (7) were computed using physical properties of the air at the measured air temperatures along the airow channel. The variation of some parameters in the operation of conical air heater with or without packing in the airow channel, as the heat transfer areas, porosities, friction factors, pumping power, the heat transfer coecients h and Colburn J (JH) factors with the number of folds in the packing are given in Table 3. It can be easily seen that linear velocity of the air through the absorbing tube increases as the hydraulic diameter or the porosity of the channel reduces by increasing the number of folds in the packing. Table 3 also shows that friction factors and pumping power increase considerably with the number of folds in the packing. It is clear that packing placed into the channel to provide an eective heat transfer brings additional resistance to the airow and causes pumping power requirement for passing the air at the same mass ow rate to increase considerably. The roughness of airow channel increase related to decreasing of porosities by increasing the number of folds in

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the packing. The values of friction factor increase by increasing roughness of airow channel. It has long been know that in turbulent ow a rough pipe leads to a larger friction factor for a given Reynolds number than a smooth pipe dose. The pumping power required supplying the same mass ow rate increase because of decreasing of hydraulic diameter by increasing the number of folds in the packing materials. Theoretical prediction of eective heat transfer parameters in packed beds has been investigated by Dixon and Cresswell [11]. According to their studies, convective heat transfer coecient calculates from Eq. (5), when packing materials in the airow channel placed. However, lm heat transfer coecients h calculated from Eq. 4 (empty situation) and Eq. 5 (packed situation) and Colburn J (JH) factors increase approximately 10-fold after heat transfer area is enlarged less than 3-fold with the 14 folds of packing, implying that this resistance is insignicant compared to the heat gain acquired by the packing. The fact that lm heat transfer coecients can reach 240 W/m2 K show a very fast heat transfer to the air. This may be taken as a conrmation of the previous assumption that the temperature dierences between the air and inner absorber surface are not signicant. 5. Conclusions By using selective absorber surface and folded aluminium wire mesh packing in a new solar air heater with conical concentrator tracking the sun, its typical 50% forced convection eciency may be increased by 6% with selective surface, by 60% with packing and by 68% with both of them. Maximum eciencies were obtained by using aluminium wire mesh packing of 14 numbers of folds (e = 0.972) and selective absorbing surface together. In these conditions, the increase in the air temperature and the eciency of the system were 50 C and 84%, respectively. These values are found to be considerably higher than those reported before for the various solar air heaters till now [7,19,2932]. Tracking mechanism brings additional cost approximately 100$, but due to high eciency, this additional cost is not signicant. The packing placed into the airow channel to augment heat transfer brings additional resistance to the airow and causes pumping power requirement to increase considerably and to reach approximately to 1.6 W with 14 folds of packing. But, this resistance is insignicant compared to the heat gain due to enormous increase in lm heat transfer coecients acquired with the packing. Acknowledgments This study was supported by Research Foundation of Frat University (Project No: FUNAF296). References
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