Project Report

2008 MVK160 Heat and Mass Transport

May 08, 2008, Lund, Sweden

Analysis of a Flat-plate Solar Collector

Fabio Struckmann
Dept. of Energy Sciences, Faculty of Engineering,
Lund University, Box 118, 22100 Lund, Sweden

ABSTRACT

In the solar-energy industry great emphasis has been placed on the development of "active" solar energy systems which involve the
integration of several subsystems: solar energy collectors, heat-storage containers, heat exchangers, fluid transport and distribution
systems, and control systems. The major component unique to active systems is the solar collector. This device absorbs the incoming
solar radiation, converting it into heat at the absorbing surface, and transfers this heat to a fluid (usually air or water) flowing through
the collector. The warmed fluid carries the heat either directly to the hot water or space conditioning equipment or to a storage
subsystem from which can be drawn for use at night and on cloudy days.
A precise and detailed analysis of a solar flat plate collector is quite complicated because of the many factors involved. Efforts have
been made to combine a number of the most important factors into a single equation and thus formulate a mathematical model which
will describe the thermal performance of the collector in a computationally efficient manner.

NOMENCLATURE INTRODUCTION

A collector area, m2 Solar Collectors

FR collector heat removal factor
Solar collectors are the key component of active solar-heating
I intensity of solar radiation, W/m2 systems. They gather the sun's energy, transform its radiation
Tc collector average temperature, °C into heat, then transfer that heat to a fluid (usually water or air).
The solar thermal energy can be used in solar water-heating
Ti inlet fluid temperature, °C
systems, solar pool heaters, and solar space-heating systems.
Ta ambient temperature, °C
There are a large number of solar collector designs that have
UL collector overall heat loss coefficient, W/m2
shown to be functional. These designs are classified in two
Qi collector heat input, W general types of solar collectors:
Qu useful energy gain, W
 Flat-plate collectors – the absorbing surface is
Qo heat loss, W approximately as large as the overall collector area that
intercepts the sun's rays.
Greek Symbols  Concentrating collectors – large areas of mirrors or
lenses focus the sunlight onto a smaller absorber.
 collector efficiency
 transmission coefficient of glazing
Flat-plate collectors
 absorption coefficient of plate
Flat-plate collectors are the most common solar collector for
solar water-heating systems in homes and solar space heating. A
Subscripts typical flat-plate collector is an insulated metal box with a glass
or plastic cover (called the glazing) and a dark-colored absorber
m mass flow rate of fluid through the collector, kg/s plate. These collectors heat liquid or air at temperatures less
than 80°C.

Copyright © 2008 by Fabio Struckmann

 LITERATURE SURVEY

Figure 3 shows the schematic of a typical solar system

employing a flat plate solar collector and a storage tank.

Fig. 1 A typical liquid Flat Plate Collector Fig. 3 Typical solar energy collection system

Flat-plate collectors are used for residential water heating and If I is the intensity of solar radiation, in W/m2, incident on the
hydronic space-heating installations. aperture plane of the solar collector having a collector surface
area of A, m2, then the amount of solar radiation received by the
collector is:
PROBLEM STATEMENT

Figure 2 shows a schematic drawing of the heat flow through a

Qi  I  A (1)
collector. The question is, how to measure its thermal
performance, i.e. the useful energy gain or the collector However, as it is shown Figure 2, a part of this radiation is
efficiency. reflected back to the sky, another component is absorbed by the
glazing and the rest is transmitted through the glazing and
reaches the absorber plate as short wave radiation.
Therefore the conversion factor indicates the percentage of the
solar rays penetrating the transparent cover of the collector
(transmission) and the percentage being absorbed.
Basically, it is the product of the rate of transmission of the
cover and the absorption rate of the absorber.

Thus,

Qi  I   A (2)

As the collector absorbs heat its temperature is getting higher

than that of the surrounding and heat is lost to the atmosphere
by convection and radiation. The rate of heat loss (Qo) depends
on the collector overall heat transfer coefficient (UL) and the
collector temperature.

Qo  U L ATc  Ta 
Fig. 2 Heat flow through a Flat Plate solar collector
(3)
Thus it is necessary to define step by step the singular heat flow
equations in order to find the governing equations of the
collector system.
Thus, the rate of useful energy extracted by the collector (Qu),
expressed as a rate of extraction under steady state conditions,
is proportional to the rate of useful energy absorbed by the

Copyright © 2008 by Fabio Struckmann

collector, less the amount lost by the collector to its A measure of a flat plate collector performance is the collector
surroundings.1 efficiency (η) defined as the ratio of the useful energy gain (Qu)
to the incident solar energy over a particular time period:

 Q dt
This is expressed as follows:

u

Qu  Qi  Qo  I  A  U L ATc  Ta  (4) A I dt

(8)

The instantaneous thermal efficiency of the collector is:

Qu
It is also known that the rate of extraction of heat from the  (9)
collector may be measured by means of the amount of heat AI
carried away in the fluid passed through it, that is: FR AI  U L Ti  Ta 
 (10)

Qu  mcp To  Ti 
AI
(5) T T 
  FR  FRU L  i a  (11)
 I 
Equation 4 proves to be somewhat inconvenient because of the
difficulty in defining the collector average temperature. It is
convenient to define a quantity that relates the actual useful PROJECT DESCRIPTION
energy gain of a collector to the useful gain if the whole
collector surface were at the fluid inlet temperature. This If it is assumed that FR, τ, α, UL 2 are constants for a given
quantity is known as “the collector heat removal factor (FR)” collector and flow rate, then the efficiency is a linear function of
and is expressed as: the three parameters defining the operating condition:
Solar irradiance (I), Fluid inlet temperature (Ti) and Ambient air

mcp To  Ti 
temperature (Ta).

FR 
AI  U L Ti  Ta 
Thus, the performance of a Flat-Plate Collector can be
(6)
approximated by measuring these three parameters in
experiments. The result is a single line (ΔT/I – Curve) shown
in Figure 4. 3
The maximum possible useful energy gain in a solar collector
occurs when the whole collector is at the inlet fluid temperature.
The actual useful energy gain (Qu), is found by multiplying the
collector heat removal factor (FR) by the maximum possible
useful energy gain. This allows the rewriting of equation (4):

Qu  FR AI  U L Ti  Ta  (7)

Equation (7) is a widely used relationship for measuring

collector energy gain and is generally known as the “Hottel-
Whillier-Bliss equation”.

1
The useful energy gain depends strongly on the energy losses from the 2
In practice, UL is not a constant as heat losses will increase as the
top surface of the collector both due to convective and radiative heat transfer temperature of the collector rises further above ambient temperature (thermal
processes. The losses from the bottom and from the edges of the collector do conductivity of materials varies with temperature).
always exist. Their contribution, however, is not as significant as the losses
from the top. 3
The resulting plot will be a straight line only if conditions are such that
FR, UL and (τ α) are constants.

Copyright © 2008 by Fabio Struckmann

 REFERENCES
[1] Shepherd, D.W., 2003, Energy Studies (2nd edition),
Imperial College, London, UK.
[2] Cooper, P.I.; Dunkle, R.V., 1981, “A non-linear flat-
plate collector model”, Solar Energy Vol. 26, Issue 2
pp. 133-140.
[3] http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Measurements
/CollectorPerformance.htm#Efficiency
[4] http://www.powerfromthesun.net/

Fig. 4 Performance of a typical flat-plate thermal collector

(ambient temperature 25°C)

The collector efficiency η is plotted against (Ti – Ta )/I. The

slope of this line (- FR UL) represents the rate of heat loss from
the collector. For example, collectors with cover sheets will
have less of a slope than those without cover sheets.

There are two interesting operating points on Figure 4.

1) The first is the maximum collection efficiency, called

the optical efficiency. This occurs when the fluid inlet
temperature equals ambient temperature (Ti= Ta). For
this condition, the ΔT/I value is zero and the intercept
is FR(τ α).

2) The other point of interest is the intercept with the

ΔT/I axis. This point of operation can be reached when
useful energy is no longer removed from the collector,
a condition that can happen if fluid flow through the
collector stops (power failure). In this case, the optical
energy coming in must equal the heat loss, requiring
that the temperature of the absorber increase until this
balance occurs. This maximum temperature difference
or “stagnation temperature” is defined by this point.
For well-insulated collectors or concentrating
collectors the stagnation temperature can reach very
high levels causing fluid boiling and, in the case of
concentrating collectors, the absorber surface can melt.

CONCLUSION

A way to describe the thermal performance of a Flat Plate Solar

collector has been shown. The most important measure is the
collector efficiency. A more precise and detailed analysis should
include the fact, that the overall heat loss coefficient (UL) and
other factors as the heat removal factor (FR) are not constant
values.

Copyright © 2008 by Fabio Struckmann