Abstract:

Solar energy is widely used in energy production systems such as hot water, heat energy, and electricity production. Thermal solar collectors, which are used to benefit from solar energy, have a very important place in energy production. There are many methods to achieve high efficiency in solar energy systems that produce hot water. In this study, the effect of fluid pipes of different shapes on the efficiency of solar water heating systems was investigated in order to increase the efficiency of thermal solar collectors. For this purpose, the surface area in contact with the plate was increased by using an elliptical tube instead of a circular tube in connection with the absorber plate, and the effect of the increased contact surface on the efficiency was investigated. The analyzes were made in the ANSYS Fluent software and it was observed that the water temperature in the elliptical section pipe was higher than the circular section pipe. While the outlet temperature of the water in the elliptical pipe is 304.16 K, the outlet temperature of the water in the circular pipe is 296.082 K. It has been observed that the efficiency value of the solar collector with elliptical pipe section has 8.078% higher efficiency than the efficiency of the solar collector with circular pipe section.

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