THERMAL EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE-FLOW SOLAR AIR HEATER WITH DIFFERENT MASS FLOW RATES IN A SMOOTH PLATE

This paper presents an experimental thermal efficiency analysis for a novel flat plate solar air heater with several mass flow rates. The aims are to review of designed and analyzed a thermal efficiency of flat-plate solar air heaters. The measured parameters were the inlet and outlet temperatures, the absorbing plate temperatures, the ambient temperature, and the solar radiation. Further, the measurements were performed at different values of mass flow rate of air in flow channel duct. After the analysis of the results, the optimal value of efficiency is higher level of mass flow rate equal to 0.0202 kg/s in flow channel duct for all operating conditions and the single-flow collector supplied with maximum mass flow rate appears significantly better than that another flow rate. At the end of this study, the thermal efficiency relations are delivered for different mass flow rates. Maximum efficiency obtained for the single pass air heater between the air mass flow rates from 0.0108 to 0.0184 kg/s; were 39.72% and 50.47 % respectively, with tilt angle equal 45 degrees in location Biskra city of Algeria. The thermal efficiency correspondently the mass flow rates were 28.63, 39.69, 46.98, 55.70 and 63.61 %, respectively.