Analytical and Experimental Investigation of Convective Heat Transfer in Solar Collector

The evaluation of the outlet temperature of flow in solar collector is still of interest for the
convection heat transfer investigator. The aim of this project is to correlate the air outlet
temperature to inlet of the solar thermal channel, wall temperature, radiation intensity and air
flow rate, at different tilt angle and channel length. This project is involved both the analytical
and experimental works. For analytical analysis, the physical model of the solar thermal channel
is developed together with the mathematical model for the system. Solution is proposed by using
iteration in the MA TLAB program to find the unknowns. A test rig based on the physical model
is designed and fabricated for experimental validation. Experiments were run at 10°, 30°, 50°, 70°,
90° tilt angles, for 1m, 1.5m, and 2m channel length respectively. In addition, readings were
taken every 2 hours interval to investigate the transient behavior of the system. Finally, results
from analytical analysis is compared and validated with the experimental result. The percentage
error of the validation results is within the margin of 6% to 13%, effectively. In addition,
recommendations were provided for future work, to improve both the analytical and
experimental aspects.