THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF NANOFLUID FILLED SOLAR FLAT PLATE COLLECTOR

A numerical study has been conducted to investigate the forced convection through a flat plate solar collector (FPSC). The water Cu nanofluid is used as the working fluid inside the riser pipe of the solar collector. The governing differential equations with boundary conditions are solved by Finite Element Method using Galerkin's weighted residual scheme. The computation domain is discretized by triangular element with six nodes. The effects of major system parameters on the forced convection heat transfer are simulated. These parameters include the the solar irradiation (I) and diameter (D) of the riser pipe. Comprehensive average Nusselt number, mean temperature, mean velocity, percentage of collector efficiency, output temperature for both nanofluid and base fluid through the absorber tube are presented as functions of the pertaining parameters mentioned above. The numerical results show that the highest heat transfer rate is observed for both the highest I and lowest D. Percentage of collector efficiency enhances for growing I and falling D.