Abstract:

: The current study investigates the impact of solar collector array, employing flat plate solar collectors (FPC) and evacuated tube solar collectors (ETC) on the transient performance of a solar-driven single-effect absorption cooling system. The investigation was executed for provision of a peak cooling demand of 102 kW for an office building with 147 m 2 of floor. Building geometry has been developed in Sketch Up and modeled in TRNBuild. The system has been simulated in TRNSYS during the summer season through weather data of Cairo (30.0444° N 31.2357° E), Lahore (31.5204° N 74.3587° E) and Abu Dhabi (24° N 54° E). An auxiliary heater (i.e., gas-fired boiler) was installed in the hot storage tank of an absorption chiller loop to maintain the desired generator temperature of 116 °C. The complete system configuration was modeled in TRNSYS. Transient analysis was carried out by the criterion of maximized primary energy saving ( fsav) and solar fraction (SF). The main results of the study indicate that to achieve fsav of at least 50%, the required evacuated tube solar collector areas are 600 m 2, 650 m 2 and 700 m 2 for Lahore, Abu Dhabi and Cairo, respectively. Similarly, 50% primary energy is saved for flat plate collector areas of 1000 m 2 for Lahore and Abu Dhabi and 1500 m 2 for Cairo. Furthermore, for both FPC and ETC, Abu Dhabi and Lahore yields maximum primary energy savings of 0.6–0.7 at a storage volume of 10–30 L/m 2. The present model was compared and validated with a published work that showed a deviation of 7.34%.

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