Enhancement of thermal efficiency of nanofluid flows in a flat solar collector using CFD

Abstract

Flat plate solar collector (FPSC) is popular for their low cost, simplicity, and ease of installation and operation. In this work, FPSC thermal performance was analyzed. It's compared to diamond/H2O nanofluids. The volume percentage and kind of nanoparticles are analyzed numerically that validation with experimental data available in the literature. The hot climate of Iraq is employed to approximate the model. The numerical study is performed by using ANSYS/FLUENT software to simulate the case study of problem. Due to less solar intensity after midday, temperatures reduction. The greatest collector thermal efficiency is 68.90% with 1% ND/water nanofluid, a 12.2% increase over pure water. The efficiency of 1% nanofluid is better than other concentrations because of a change in physical properties and an increase in thermal conductivity. Since the intensity of radiation affects the outlet temperature from the solar collector and there is a direct link between them, this increases the efficiency of the solar collector, especially around 12:30 pm at the optimum efficiency.

Keywords

• computational fluid dynamics
• thermal performance
• diamond/h2o nanofluids
• solar collector flat-plate