Abstract

Optimization of Process Parameters in V-Grooved Solar Simulator (Collector) With Semi-Circular Heat Pipe (SCHP)

Author(s): M. Saravanan and N. Karunakaran

V-Grooved solar simulator (VGSS) was designed and constructed at Measurements lab of Annamalai University and its thermal performance were analyzed on an indoor test facility. Integrating the V-Grooved absorber plate with flat plate collector can enhance the system performance. VGSS system uses semi-circular heat pipe of length 900 mm and radius of 12 mm. The parameters considered in this analysis are heat input, angle of inclination and flow rate of water in condenser section. The Box-Behnken Design (BBD) Matrix and Response Surface Method (RSM) are applied in designing the experiments to evaluate the thermal resistance and efficiency of the VGSS integrated with semi-circular heat pipe. The experimental results shows that the proposed model will be useful to predict the thermal efficiency of the semi-circular heat pipe within the error of 1%. Therefore the proposed model is useful to predict the thermal efficiency and resistance of semi-circular heat pipe.