Numerical and Experimental Studies of Influencing Factors on the Performance of Solar Still

Abstract

The passive double slope solar still is a common method used to purify newlinesaline water and convert it to fresh water. However, the process is slow compared to newlinethe active system, and its performance depends on solar radiation. In recent years, newlineresearchers have been working on improving the yield rate of the system by using newlineabsorber materials such as fins of different shapes and sizes. The current thesis focuses newlineon using channels attached to the double slope solar still to feed water to the basin and newlineincrease the temperature of the basin water. The channels work based on principles newlinesimilar to fins and utilize solar heat energy. Therefore, this thesis first aims to conduct newlinea numerical analysis to determine the best boiling model and best hydraulic channel newlinediameter while considering different mass flow rates and heat flux. The best boiling newlinemodel is selected based on its ability to predict vapour fraction, onset nuclear boiling, newlineand heat transfer coefficient under the same boundary condition in the hydraulic newlinechannel. These parameters are analyzed using different boiling models (VOF Model, newlineMixture Model, Eulerian Model) at various mass flow rates and heat fluxes. The results newlineshow that the mixture model provides better accuracy than the other models newline