Study to the Thermal Performance of Serpentine-Tube Solar Collector at Two Different Tilt Angles

Abstract

The global demand for electricity is increasing, and the resources depletion of fossil fuel, have necessitated an epitome shift in the development of efficient technologies and sustainable energy. Air-conditioning represents the main reason in the increasing of demand for electricity particularly in summer. The use of renewable energy is a viable solution to mitigate this problem. This work studies the thermal performance of a serpentine-tube solar collector for two different design at two different tilt angles to employ the proposed design in the improvement of air conditioning system. In the current study, the 3-D model design has been used with two different lengths. The first has a tube of 1.65m length with two turns. The second has a tube of 2.35m length with four turns. ANSYS Fluent 16.1 is used in the modeling and simulating of the two design. The working fluid in the suggested model is R22, where the refrigerant is directly exposed to the solar radiation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation employs to predict the refrigerant temperature at the outlet of serpentine-tube (ST). The results show the increment in temperature due to the intensity of solar radiation, at angle 13o to the first proposed design, is about 15.42% and for the second design is 24.99%, while at angle 30o it was boosted by 19.34% for the second design and 10.86% for the first model.