Thermo Hydraulic Performance of a Curved Solar Air Heater with Different Shaped down Turbulators using CFD

In contrast to the flat plate SAH design, curved designs of solar air heater ducts show substantial improvement in thermal characteristics, with the former showing a slight decrease in hydraulic efficiency. The creation of secondary vortices resulting in the mixing flow is demonstrated by curved SAH due to the centrifugal effect. In addition, the creation of dean vortices increases the rate of heat transfer in curved SAH. In flat plate SAH, these results are absent. In this present work, a three dimensional CFD analysis was carried out in a Curved duct of a solar air heater with a upper roughened wall with down configuration ribs having shape of half triangular, full triangular, and semi circular to investigate the heat transfer and flow behavior. The simulation programme ANSYS 17.0 was used for study of the heat transfer physiognomies of a curved duct of a solar air heater. The curved solar air heater with triangular rib roughness on the absorber plate has been found to yield improved results relative to the half triangular and semi circular rib and can thus be used to increase the heat transfer. The maximum enhancement in Nusselt number is found to be in triangular shaped ribs, which is 1.112 times that of half triangular corresponding to at a Reynolds number of 15,000 for the investigated range of parameters. Satish Sahu | Prof. Animesh Singhai "Thermo-Hydraulic Performance of a Curved Solar Air Heater with Different Shaped down Turbulators using CFD" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-5 | Issue-2 , February 2021, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd38546.pdf Paper Url: https://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/mechanical-engineering/38546/thermohydraulic-performance-of-a-curved-solar-air-heater-with-different-shaped-down-turbulators-using-cfd/satish-sahu