Experimental investigation on double pass solar air heater with internal heat storage

Abstract

Solar energy is one of the crucial energy sources for agricultural newlinedrying, industrial process heat and space heating requirements, that is newlinerenewable as well as pollution-free. In drying applications and heating of the newlinebuilding spaces, solar energy has an important role to play, as it provides an newlineenormous amount of heat energy where the air is the final receiver of the heat newlineenergy. Flat plate collectors are good enough for heating air, but the newlinetechnology and applications of solar air collectors have not been so newlinedeveloped as a liquid solar collector. As solar energy is inconsistent and newlinenature dependent, more often there is a mismatch between the solar thermal newlineenergy availability and requirement. This drawback could be addressed to an newlineextent with the help of thermal energy storage systems combined with solar newlineair heaters. The solar air heaters typically have single-pass type airflow, newlinehaving flow over or under or both over and under the absorber plate. Double- newlinepass type solar collectors will have flow over the absorber plate for the first newlinepass and returns under the absorber plate for the second pass or vice-versa. newlineThis study presents the overall performance of a Double-Pass newlineSolar Air Heater (DPSAH) with four different configurations: (i) double-pass newlinesolar air heater with flat absorber plate (Type I), (ii) double-pass solar ai newline