Numerical and Experimental Study of Solar Dryer Equipped with PV/T

Abstract

Drying of agricultural food products in a solar dryer equipped with a PV/T air collector is a frequent research topic. Consequently, an experimental and numerical study has been conducted on MSD to examine the distribution of the temperature and airflow. Moreover, COMSOL Multiphysics software is used to solve a 3D temporal non-isothermal flow for the system invented. Further, the improvement of the mass flow rate dropped approximately the average PV temperature experimentally from 60 °C to 43 °C and from 63 °C to 47 °C numerically. Furthermore, the average outlet temperature of the PV/T reaches 60,5 °C in the experience and 62 °C in the simulation in the case where the mass flow rate is 0,012 kg/s, but it is dropped to 44 °C in the experience and 45 °C in the simulation for the highest mass flow rate of 0,0235 kg/s. Hence, the best recorded average thermal efficiency of the PV/T was 53% for the maximum mass flow rate (0,025 kg/s), while the average thermal efficiency of the PV/T was 29% when the mass flow rate decreased to 0,012 kg/s. Consequently, the recorded temperature in the drying chamber reaches 55 °C in the experimental data and in the simulation.

Keywords

• experimental
• forced convection
• PV/T air collector
• simulation and COMSOL Multiphysics
• solar dryer
• solar energy