Thermal performance enhancement of gas filled double glazed flat plate solar collectors

Abstract

The aim of this investigation is to study the effect of using two different trapped gasses at the same time within two glazing and absorber plate in which the inner layer adjacent to the absorber plate was filled with Helium and the outer layer was filled with Argon to augment the heat gain and prevent heat missing that lead to 12.39 % enhancement in the performance of Gas Filled Double Glazed Flat Plate Solar Collector (GFDGFPSC) in comparison to Air Filled DGFPSC. As Collectors have to be installed at the best angle to gain the maximum irradiation, variation of DGFPSC's angle and both optical thicknesses were evaluated. On the basis of findings, AFDGFPSC's efficiency increased to more than 37 % when the angle was 60° while it was about 31 % at the angle of 30°. Efficiency of the Gas Filled DGFPSC increased a bit lower from 46.7 % to 49.6 % as the angle increased from 30 to 60°. Variations of both inner and outer optical thicknesses were examined at the angle of 60° where growth of the outer optical thickness made low effect on GFDGFPSC performance whereas inner optical thickness increment boosted the useful energy reservation and thus thermal efficiency up to 53.44 %.

Keywords

• Experimental Solar Collector
• Filling gas
• Optical thickness
• Tilt angle
• Heat lost
• Efficiency