Water storage tank used as additional thermal energy for solar air heater

Research dedicated to renewable energies aims at reducing the negative impact of fossil fuels on the ecosystem and particularly to solar applications so to make it more competitive with conventional systems. In this paper, attention is paid to flat plate solar air collector due to their simplicity and immediate use in converting solar energy, and operating at low temperature. A modification has been brought to one of its components to further improve its performance. To meet the needs of thermal energy demand for a given use (heating, drying, etc.), an installation of a field of collectors (solar air collector, solar water heater, etc.) is required to ensure the demanded thermal power. The modification consists in integrating, on the back of the solar air collector, a water tank supplied by solar water collectors, which serves as a heat storage tank for any other use. A simulation is performed using Fluent CFD code, in order to follow the evolution of the heat transfer fluid flow considering the implantation site meteorological data at Bouzareah (Algeria). Different flow rates were considered for the two heat transfer fluids. A primary heat transfer fluid was represented by air and the second one represented by water. Simulation results show that thermal efficiency of the modified solar air collector is improved compared to the one of the typical solar air heater when we use forced flow. For the different used flow rates, higher efficiency is obtained when the flow rate of the primary heat transfer fluid (air) is increased.