Evaluation of Heat Transfer Performance of Solar Water Heating System using Dimension Analysis

Abstract

A preliminary set of Taguchi-designed experiments utilizing three different fluids (water, 50 : 50 ethylene glycol-water mixture, and 0.6 M sodium chloride solution) were conducted and its experimental results were used to produce an irradiance-based correlation via dimensional analysis. A solar water heating system integrated with its thermal radiation source and flat plate collector as a receiver was used for this experiments. Conducted dimensional analysis, which includes the thermophysical properties of the heat transfer fluid, amount of irradiance received by a collector, and distance between both receiver and source. The resulting dimensionless correlation was a function of the Reynolds number and a newly proposed dimensionless number, referred to as the SRY number. The dimensionless constant and exponents were determined using experimental data. The proposed correlation was found to be in close agreement with the existing correlation.