Title: Experimental Study of Thermal Performance Enhancement of A Flat Plate Solar Air Heater Using Optical Measurement Technique
Abstract: Experimental test set up at laboratory scale was developed for thermal performance testing of flat plate solar air heater with artificial solar radiation intensity; 600W/m 2 .A test cell of size 1m × 0.5m × 0.1m was fabricated.Three configurations namely (i) plane absorber under natural convection (ii) Inclined Vporous ribs with conducting side walls under natural convection and (iii) Former under forced convection were tested.Performances of these designs have been analysed on the basis of thermal efficiency and thermal gradient in normal to the base.Thermal gradient was determined by optical beam deviation method using a coherent light source namely 10mW He-Ne laser.Temperature sensors (RTD, were also used to validate the optical results of thermal gradient.The overall thermal efficiencies of these configurations are found as 14.91%, 19.93% and 31.6%respectively.Thermal gradient has been found to be reduced with performance enhancement.