A Study of Heat Transfer in a Composite Wall Collector System with Porous Absorber

摘要

In this paper, heat transfer and flow in a composite solar wall with porous absorber has been studied. The unsteady numerical simulation is employed to analyze the performance of the flow and temperature field in the composite solar wall. The excess heat is stored in the porous absorber and wall by the incident solar radiation and there is a temperature gradient in the porous layer. Therefore, the porous absorber works as thermal insulator in a degree when no solar shining is available. The influence of the porosity within the porous absorber on the air flow in the porous absorber is significant. The results show that all these factors should be taken into account for a better design of a heating system.