The Study of Solar Collector Using Closed Loop Pulsating Heat Pipe with Alumina as Working Fluid

Nowadays, flat plate collectors are used for water heating purpose. But there are problems of corrosion, scaling and reverse heat flowing. Flat plate collector also has low efficiency and it requires more size. It is not possible for collector to work early in the morning and also in rainy days due to low solar intensity. This might lead the collector to not work efficiently for the whole year. To overcome these difficulties we have turned to use heat pipe in the solar collectors. We know that the heat pipe is a device to absorb heat at one end and reject it at another end. In our project we have used this heat transferring device in solar collector. The project involves the design, construction and testing of a prototype model of a solar heat pipe collectors. In present study set up of flat plate collector using closed loop pulsating heat pipes is fabricated. The working fluid used in this setup is Al2O3 (Alumina) nanofluid. After taking readings and analyzing it we have found that there is enhancement in efficiency by 10 to 15 % with the set up designed in comparison with conventional flat plate collector.