Comparison Study of Solar Flat Plate Collector with Single and Double Glazing Systems

TLDR: In this article, a double glaze system was introduced and optimized the space between the absorber plate to glass cover (1) and glass cover were considered to analyze the overall top loss heat transfer coefficient (U t ).

Abstract: Solar energy can be converted into useful energy in the form of thermal energy. One of the most efficient methods is to harvesting heat energy by using solar flat plate collector. The function of solar collector is to heat water from the atmospheric temperature. The heated water can be used for domestic and industrial applications etc. The efficiency of the solar collector is depend with  many parameters such as  number of glass cover, wind velocity, space  between absorber plate to the glass cover and overall top loss heat transfer coefficient out of which  top loss heat transfer coefficient top loss (U t ) plays an important role for design of solar collector. Taking this point under consideration the present work is to reduce the overall top loss heat transfer coefficient and improve the collector efficiency. A double glaze system was introduced and optimized the space between the absorber plate to glass cover (1) and glass cover (2)were considered to analysis the overall top loss heat transfer coefficient (U t ). The single and double glazing solar flat plate collectors were fabricated with same dimensions and installed at a latitude angle of 12 degree facing towards N-S direction. The experiment has been carried out between 10.00 AM to 4.00 PM with thermosyphon principle. The result shows that the efficiency of double glazing is higher compared to single glazing system with same solar intensity. The higher efficiency has obtained because of the overall top loss heat transfer coefficient was reduced in double glazing system. However, the efficiency of collector is not constant; it varies with wind velocity, convective, radiative heat transfer coefficient and solar intensity.Â