Comparative Performance of Conventional Evacuated Glass Tube Solar Collector Over a Combination of Heat Pipe and Copper Tube Condenser

摘要

In the present study, three separate experiments were conducted, one on conventional evacuated glass tube collectors, the second one on evacuated glass tube collectors with heat pipe and third experiment on evacuated glass tube collectors with copper tube condenser combination. The performance of each system was compared with the conventional system with respect to heat rate (Q_u) and efficiency (η). The results reveled that; Performance of evacuated tube solar collector proved better in recording higher range of heat rate (194.06 W to 416.38 W), closely followed by evacuated tube collector in combination with copper condenser tube (74.87W to 365.19 W) and with heat pipe combination ( 54.25 W to 291.09 W), and also recorded higher range of efficiency (29.93% to 40.46%), closely followed by glass evacuated tube collector in combination with copper condenser tube (12.36% to 35.48%) and with heat pipe combination (8.96% to 37.07%). The heat rate (Q_u) and efficiency (η) of evacuated tube collector in combination with copper condenser tube and heat pipe, though recorded at lower rate in the morning hours but picked up gradually in the afternoon hours.