Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Using Large Scale Pulsating Heat Pipe on the Performance of a Flat Plate Solar Collector

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In this work, the performance of a flat plate solar collector operating in conjunction with a closed-loop pulsating heat pipe (CLPHP) is experimentally investigated. All the experiments are carried out at the Yazd, Iran. The experimental setup consists of a flat plate solar collector, pulsating heat pipe and a tank. The evaporator of the pulsating heat pipe is located inside the flat plate collector. In order to investigate the effect of the evaporator length on the efficiency of the system, three collectors are manufactured, which are different in the lengths of their evaporating section. Moreover, the effects of filling ratio of the pulsating heat pipe, inclination angle and flow rate are investigated for each collector separately. Although the increment in length of the evaporator negatively affects the convectional heat transfer, results do not show remarkable deterioration in the performance of flat plate solar collector. The optimum value for filling ratio of the pulsating heat pipe in all of three devices is measured as 30%, regardless of evaporator length. Finally, varying the inclination angle demonstrated that at angles between 0° and 20° degrees, the heat pipes exhibit unfavorable performance, while for angles between 30° and 50° degrees, the performances are favorable and almost similar. At the angle of 60 degrees, the performance is reduced due to excessive decrease in solar radiation.

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Journal of Solid and Fluid Mechanics
Volume 2, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
March and April 2012
Pages 57-66

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