Modeling of a Solar Water Collector with Water-Based Nanofluid Using Nanoparticles

The pressure-velocity form of the Navier-Stokes equations, energy equation, and concentration equation are used to represent the mass, momentum, energy, and concentration conservations of the nanofluid medium in the solar collector. The governing equations and corresponding boundary conditions are converted to dimensionless form and solved numerically by the finite element method. The physical domain is discretized by triangular mesh elements with six nodes. The working fluid is water-based nanofluid with two nanoparticles, namely, silver (Ag) and copper oxide (CuO). The study includes computations for different values of buoyancy ratio (Nr) and Schmidt number (Sc). Flow, heat, and mass transfer characteristics are presented in the forms of streamlines, isotherms, and iso-concentrations. In addition, results for the average radiative, convective heat and mass transfer, mean temperature and concentration of nanofluid, mid-height horizontal-vertical velocities, and subdomain average velocity field are offered and discussed for the above-mentioned parametric conditions. Results show that the effects of Nr and Sc on the convective-radiative heat and mass transfer phenomenon inside the collector are significant for all values of Nr and Sc studied. Comparison and validation with the standard experimental/numerical data is given in brief. The variation of the obtained result is presented as 34% with the result of experimental data. (C) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.