Contemporary Engineering Sciences, Vol. 11, 2018, no. 74, 3655 - 3661 HIKARI Ltd, www.m-hikari.com https://doi.org/10.12988/ces.2018.88400

Study of the Influence of Emissivity on

the Thermal Performance of Vertical

Unglazed Transpired Solar Collector

Jorge Duarte1, Guillermo E. Valencia2 and Luis G. Obregón3

1 Efficient Energy Management Research Group – Kaí, Universidad del Atlántico Carrera 30 Número 8 - 49, Puerto Colombia – Colombia

2 Mechanical Eng., Efficient Energy Management Research Group – Kaí Universidad del Atlántico, Carrera 30 Número 8 – 49 Puerto Colombia – Colombia

3 Sustainable Chemical and Biochemical Processes Research Group Universidad del Atlántico, Carrera 30 Número 8 – 49 Puerto Colombia – Colombia

Copyright © 2018 Jorge Duarte, Guillermo E. Valencia and Luis G. Obregón. This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

In this work, the influence of the emissivity of a solar collector on its thermal performance was studied, to evaluate the effect of radiative heat losses on-air preheating appliances. To do so, the equations that define the efficiency of the unglazed solar collector were programmed into a commercial software package (such as MATLAB®, where the emissivity of the collector surface was varied, to study its response when a radiation boundary condition is changed; to validate the obtained results, a comparison with the theoretical results was done to verify the prediction capacity of the programming code. As the results obtained through the code shared the same behavior of the theoretical ones (though a little deviation), it was verified the capabilities of the program to accurately predict the collector efficiency with a higher speed, and at the same time, it allowed to establish that the increase in the emissivity generates a reduction in the thermal efficiency of approximately 20%, which makes it an important factor to control through the design and construction of solar collectors. 3656 Jorge Duarte et al.

Keywords: Radiation, Solar collector, Performance, Heat loss, Software packages

1. Introduction

In recent years, the term “solar energy” has gained a lot of interest in some aspects of society, as the reduction on the fossil fuel reserves has generated the need to switch to a cleaner and at the same time cheap form of energy. In view of that, a series of studies have been developed to analyze the feasibility of the inclusion of solar energy on industrial processes, in two ways: the generation of electricity or direct current from light-sensitive materials, or the generation of heat in currently existent processes that require a secondary heat source [1]–[6]. From these second way to apply solar energy, the solar collectors are a widely used solution for systems that require to raise the temperature of a certain fluid before their usage. Though there are many variants of solar collectors, the most of them combine heat transfer by radiation and convection in order to capture as much energy as possible; therefore, their study implies the analysis of thermodynamics and heat transfer inside the process, in order to do optimization processes to evaluate new possible ways to improve the energetic efficiency of these devices [7]–[10]. From the two processes at the inside of a solar collector, the convection is the most studied of the two; however, in applications where the heat transfer between the media is done through electromagnetic waves (such the visible light and infrared), heat transfer by radiation must be taken into account to fully model the overall process and consider the undesired effects that reduce efficiency, such as the heat losses due to convection and the heat rejection due to its emissivity, into a realistic model of the behavior of the solar collect and by extension, into optimization processes [8]. In the present work, a method for the study of the influence of emissivity on the thermal efficiency of a collector, was established through the application of the software package MATLAB® as a faster alternative in the modelling of the behavior of the system, and therefore an easier method to predict variables of it, with the same accuracy level of the theoretical model, which will be useful when optimization processes are required, though these are out of the scope of the present work.

2. Methodology

2.1. Development of the study The main purpose of the developed study, is to develop an alternative method for the study of the influence of radiation processes on the performance characteristics of solar collectors, in order to predict their behavior; to achieve this goal, a code program was developed using the software package MATLAB®, from the equations that regulate the thermal performance of these devices, to implement numeric methods on the solution of these equations, and also to automatize the calculation process as function of some parameters of the system, such as the Study of the influence of emissivity on the thermal performance 3657

physical dimensions of the collector and flow properties of the same. As a result, the code gives the desired output variables of the system, as a function of inlet velocity, using some tools built inside the same package. To verify its capabilities, the model obtained was used to evaluate a study case, where it was validated.

2.2. Fundamental Equations For the study of unglazed solar collectors, the literature can offer some models that allow evaluating some parameters of solar collectors. Using these models, it can be concluded that the useful heat collected 푞푢 can be calculated by the expression

푞푢 = 퐼푐 ∙ 퐴푐 ∙ 훼푠 − 푈푐 ∙ 퐴푐 ∙ (푇표푢푡 − 푇푎) (1)

Where 퐼푐 is the insolation period, 퐴푐 the collector area, and 훼푠 the absorptivity of the surface, while the second term denotes the losses due to simultaneous radiation and convection from the surface. Neglecting the heat losses due to convection, the overall heat loss coefficient 푈푐 is given as

푈푐 = ℎ푟⁄휀ℎ푥 (2)

Being 휀ℎ푥 the absorber heat-exchanger effectiveness and ℎ푟 denote a linearized radiative heat-transfer coefficient. From here, the heat-exchanger effectiveness for air flowing through the absorber plate is defined using the temperatures of the air that exits the collector (푇표푢푡), the collector and ambient temperatures 푇푐, 푇푎, by the equation

푇표푢푡−푇푎 휀ℎ푥 = (3) 푇푐−푇푎

Finally, the heat transfer coefficient used to quantify radiative losses to the sky and ground can be calculated as a function of collector emissivity 휀푐 through the equation

4 4 4 (푇푐 −퐹푐푠∙푇푠푘푦−퐹푐푔∙푇푔푛푑) ℎ푟 = 휀푐 ∙ 휎 ∙ (4) 푇푐−푇푎

In this equation, 퐹푐푠 and 퐹푐𝑔 are the view factors between the collector and the sky and between the collector and the ground, which commonly take the value of 0.5.

3. Results and discussion

Below are the results of the main points of the present study:

3.1. Validation of the simulation For validation purposes, Figure 1 shows the thermal efficiency calculated from the MATLAB® code, as a function of the air flow velocity, along with the predictions 3658 Jorge Duarte et al.

from the theoretical equations, for a square collector of 3 m with the parameters 푇푎 2 = 10°C,푇푠푘푦 =푇푎 −15°C, 푇𝑔푛푑 =푇푎 , 퐼푐 =700 W/m , and an emissivity of 0.2. The results obtained by the code resembles closely the results given by the theoretical model, with a maximum error of around 1.6%, due mainly to the significative digit differences between the calculations done by the theoretical model (around 3-4 digits) and the MATLAB® results (usually around 20), which generates a slight offset from the theoretical results. However, even with these differences, it was verified than the programming code is able to predict the thermal performance of the solar collector, as function of its emissivity.

Figure 1. Validation of the simulation

3.2. Influence on the heat transfer

To study the influence of the emissivity on the heat transfer, the system response plot was obtained at two values of the said parameter: 0.2 and 0.9, maintaining constant the other parameters. As an intermediate result, the temperature difference between the ambient air and the collector output (which have a high relevance on the study of heat transfer) was plotted as a function of airflow velocity, as shown in Figure 2. As it can be seen in the figure, in both cases this difference reduces as the flow velocity increases; however, the increase on the emissivity accelerates the heat transfer (as the coefficient is directly related to this value), which is evidenced by the reduction of the initial difference, that implies low heat loss in the system and therefore an increase in the net heat flow from the collector.

Study of the influence of emissivity on the thermal performance 3659

Figure 2. Plot of the temperature difference versus flow velocity.

3.3. Influence on the collector efficiency

Regarding the collector efficiency, Figure 3 made evident that the increment of the emissivity generates a reduction of the efficiency even a higher velocities, as it increases the amount of heat rejected by the collector; as it is unable to be transferred to the control volume, this amount of energy moves to the surroundings, and is lost without participating in the process, which in turn, as deduced from (3), keeps the efficiency at lower values when compared to the case with low emissivity, with a difference of around 5-10% between the two evaluated cases, with an even greater variation at low velocities, where the heat losses due to natural convection are added to the rejected heat from the collector.

Figure 3. Plot of the efficiency versus flow velocity.

3660 Jorge Duarte et al.

4. Conclusions

As a conclusion of the study developed, it was verified the usefulness of simulation packages in the evaluation of the thermal performance of solar collectors and prediction of their behavior, with the same accuracy level of the theoretical models. As an example of their application, the programming code developed allowed to predict the theoretical results with an offset of 1-2%, using less time than the usage of the analytical solution. Regarding the thermal performance of the solar collector, it was found that the emissivity has a high influence on radiation heat transfer and losses, which in turn affect the thermal performance of the collector. From this fact, it was found that even at high velocities, the emissivity reduces the efficiency of the process, allowing the heat to escape before entering the volume control; this phenomenon is greatly increased at low velocities, as the slow-moving flow gives more time for the heat to escape from the control volume. Therefore, emissivity is a parameter that has to be kept under control in order to achieve a higher efficiency in the use of solar collectors.

References

[1] C. V. Croitoru, I. Nastase, F. I. Bode and A. Meslem, Thermodynamic investigation on an innovative unglazed transpired solar collector, Sol. Energy, 131 (2016), 21–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2016.02.029

[2] H. Y. Chan, S. B. Riffat and J. Zhu, Review of passive solar heating and cooling technologies, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., 14 (2010), no. 2, 781– 789. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2009.10.030

[3] M. Badache, S. Hallé and D. Rousse, A full 34 factorial experimental design for efficiency optimization of an unglazed transpired solar collector prototype, Sol. Energy, 86 (2012), no. 9, 2802–2810. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2012.06.020

[4] T. N. Anderson, M. Duke and J. K. Carson, The effect of colour on the thermal performance of building integrated solar collectors, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 94 (2010), no. 2, 350–354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2009.10.012

[5] A. Shukla, D. N. Nkwetta, Y. J. Cho, V. Stevenson and P. Jones, A state of art review on the performance of transpired solar collector, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16 (2012), no. 6. 3975–3985. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2012.02.029

[6] A. Ibrahim, M. Y. Othman, M. H. Ruslan, S. Mat and K. Sopian, Recent advances in flat plate photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) solar collectors, Renew. Study of the influence of emissivity on the thermal performance 3661

Sustain. Energy Rev., 15 (2011), no. 1, 352–365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2010.09.024

[7] R. Saidur, T. C. Meng, Z. Said, M. Hasanuzzaman and A. Kamyar, Evaluation of the effect of nanofluid-based absorbers on direct solar collector, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf., 55 (2012), no. 21–22, 5899–5907. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2012.05.087

[8] S. Cordeau and S. Barrington, Performance of unglazed solar ventilation air pre-heaters for broiler barns, Sol. Energy, 85 (2011), no. 7, 1418–1429. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2011.03.026

[9] D. Y. Goswami, Principles of Solar Engineering, 3rd ed., Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1201/b18119

[10] E. Kjellsson, G. Hellström and B. Perers, Optimization of systems with the combination of ground-source heat pump and solar collectors in dwellings, Energy, 35 (2010), no. 6, 2667–2673. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2009.04.011

Received: August 20, 2018; Published: September 5, 2018