Thermal performance of solar air heater integrated with air-water heat exchanger assigned for ambient conditions in Iraq

In this research, the overall system performance of the solar air heater integrated with air-water heat exchanger (SAH-IAWHE) was investigated experimentally in Iraq-Samarra. V-corrugated absorber solar air heater (SAH) was used with and without reflectors and also with the heat exchanger (HE) which is used to compensate for the absence of sun. Several experiments were carried out during January and February of 2019 on the environmental conditions. The results showed that the maximum daily thermal efficiency of SAH was 63.49% and 59.95% at 0.017 kg/s air mass flow rate with and without reflectors respectively. The maximum air temperature was 80.12 degrees C at 6 Lpm water flow rate when HE was used without the need of a SAH. It was found that the HE improves the energy but the SAH was contributed to a 65.04% per month reduction in the amount of fuel consumption through the period of absence of sun.