Performance And Cost Analysis of Double Duct Solar Air Heaters

Abstract- This study involves a model to investigate the effect of mass flow channel depth and collector length on the thermal performance and cost benefit ratio for two types of solar air heaters in double flow mode flat plate collector with porous media and V-groove absorber. The thermal performance was determined over a wide range of operating conditions. It is found that the double pass double duct V-groove absorber is 4 -15 more efficient than the double pass flat plate collector with porous media in the lower duct and the outlet temperature is increased by 2oC -8oC even though it had a porous media in flat plate collector. On the other hand it is concluded that the higher in cost energy for any particular combination of flow depth collector length and mass flow rate is at short collector length small flow depth with high quantity of mass flow rate. Moreover the values of duct lengths and depths for which the cost of solar energy is minimized are different for different values of mass flow rates