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Use of packed beds, enhanced tubes, nano-fluids and artificial ribs are few passive techniques to increase heat transfer in solar air heaters (SAHs). Artificial ribs attached to the absorber plate of the SAH will enhance the turbulence near the plate. Experimental analyses are conducted to find the thermal performance of SAH with ribs of regular geometries including rectangular, semi-circular and triangular in cross section. This paper aims to present the improvement in thermal performance of SAH with modified-arc.

Absorber plates are designed with ribs of rectangular, triangular, semi-circular and modified-arc in cross-section using existing data in literature. Physical dimensions of the ribs are designed by adapting procedure from literature. Absorber plates are manufactured with ribs and coated with blackboard paint and fixed to the existing SAH. Experiments are conducted with a variable-speed blower fixed to the inlet section of the SAH, which is used to supply air at different mass flow rates in a range between 0.495 and 0.557 kg/min.

Efficiency is found to be a strong function of mass flow rate of air through the SAH from the present experimental investigations. It was found that use of modified-arc ribs enhanced the efficiency of SAH by 105.35 per cent compared to SAH with plane absorber plate. Efficiency of SAH with modified-arc ribs is found to be higher by 24.43, 45.61 and 63.21 per cent, respectively, for SAH with semi-circular, rectangular and triangular arc ribs on its absorber plate.

Experiments on SAH are conducted during daytime from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm in open atmospheric conditions. Solar intensity is continuously changing during the experimentation from morning to evening. Calculations are made based on the observations with average values of solar intensity and temperature readings. More accurate values of SAH efficiency can be obtained with constant heat supply to the absorber plate by simulating the experimental setup in indoor conditions. Temperature and flow rate observations could be more accurate with sophisticated instrumentation rather than using simple thermocouples and orifice meters.

SAHs are basically used to supply hot air for both rural and industrial applications. These are used for crop drying, preheating of air, removal of moisture from leather, chemicals, etc. Conventionally, formers in India are using open sun drying to remove moisture from agricultural products. In this method, the moisture can be removed up to a level of 20 to 25 per cent. Use of SAH can remove moisture up to below 5 per cent and process is clean without reducing the quality of agricultural products. Enhancing the efficiency of SAHs will surely increase its usage by formers for crop drying.

Use of artificial ribs on absorber plate of SAH is most economical among many of the active and passive techniques. Numerical and experimental investigations are found in literature with regular cross-sectional ribs, including rectangular, triangular and semi-circular. The present work proposed new shape of the ribs named as modified-arc, which was not presented in the literature. Experimental analysis proved that the use of modified-arc makes the SAH more efficient in heat transfer.

Solar energy applications are limited because of its intermittent and discontinuous availability with respect to time. Hence, solar energy thermal conversion systems need integration with thermal storage units (TSUs) to use solar energy in off sunshine hours. This paper aims to perform thermal analysis of a solar air heater (SAH) integrated with a phase change material (PCM)-based TSU to supply hot air during night period.

An experimental setup with TSU as main component was prepared with SAH at its upward side, food chamber at its downward side as subcomponents. In TSU, paraffin wax was used as thermal energy storage material. Mass flow rate of air considered as an input parameter in the experiment. Two different absorber plates, namely, plane and ribbed absorber plates were used for the experimentation. Each day for a fixed mass flow of air, observations were made during charging and discharging of PCM.

Nusselt number and convection heat transfer coefficients were analytically calculated by considering flow through TSU as external flow over bank of tubes in a rectangular duct. A temperature drop of around 7-8°C during charging of PCM and temperature rise of around 4-5°C during discharging of PCM was observed from the experimental results. The average practical efficiency of TSU with ribbed absorber plate SAH during charging and discharging of PCM was 22 and 6 per cent, respectively, higher than that of TSU with plane absorber plate SAH.

There are no limitations for research on SAH integrated with TSU. Different PCM including paraffin wax, Glauber’s salt, salt hydrates and water are used for thermal storage. Only limitation is lower efficiency of SAH integrated with TSU because of lower heat transfer coefficients with air as working medium. If it can improve heat transfer coefficients of air then heat transfer rates with these units will be higher.

There are no practical limitations for research on SAH integrated with TSU. Sophisticated instrumentation is needed to measure flow rates, temperatures and pressure variations of air.

In poultry farms during night, chicks cannot survive at cold climatic conditions. Hence, hot air should be supplied to poultry farms whenever the atmospheric temperature drops. It is proposed that, in combination with TSUs, heat produced by SAH is stored in day time in the form of either sensible or latent heat and is retrieved to provide hot air in the night times. This will reduce total operating costs in poultry farms.

Conventionally, people are producing hot air by combusting coal in poultry forms. This cost around Rs. 75,000 per month for a batch of 225 to 250 chicks in a poultry form. Hot air could be produced economically during off sunshine hours from SAH integrated with TSU compared to the conventional method of coal burning. Present experimental investigations conducted to fill the literature gap in this area of research and to design a SAH integrated with TSU to produce hot air for poultry forms.