The effect of turbidity of spherical particles on the thermal performance of a solar water heater

Abstract

The effect of spherical particles' size and concentration on the performance of a 2X-CPC solar collector used for hot water generation was studied, using geometric optics. The equations for heat exchanges between all the components of the heater were formulated taking into consideration the presence of spherical scatterers. A Visual Basic script was developed to provide numerical solutions to the resulting system of nonlinear equations. The results obtained showed that when compared with a clear and dust free condition, the absorber temperature is reduced by 21% and 36.47% for a fairly turbid condition (β= 0.21) and very turbid condition (β = 0.41) respectively.

Keywords: turbidity, spherical particles, scattering, geometric optics

Botswana Journal of Technology Vol. 14(2) 2005: 38-44