A Study on Performance of Flat Plate Solar Collector with Different Absorber

An evacuated flat plate solar thermal collector contains a flat absorber plate containing an evacuated enclosure with a top glass cover. An array of pins supports the glass cover against atmospheric pressure loading. Such collectors can achieve high operational temperatures suitable for many industrial applications and also operate efficiently in low irradiance conditions. Flat thermal solar collectors traditionally use a serpentine tube glued or fixed to a conductive absorption plate with an electrically spectral black coating. Efficiency losses due to temperature changes in the plate can be minimized by using a high conductivity material, such as copper, and making it thick enough to achieve high fin efficiency. The main objective of the present work to enhance heat transfer rate by changing the design of the absorber flat plate and compare the various results obtained from computational fluid dynamics analysis on all designs. In the present work, computational fluid dynamics analysis has been performed for six designs of absorber plate of evacuated flat plate collector to check the temperature distribution and heat generation for better thermal performance, flow variables such as velocity, enthalpy, entropy, etc.