The results of a comparative study of the steady-state approach and the periodic analysis as applied to the air heater are presented. For the periodic analysis, the meteorological data are represented by a Fourier series. The periodic analysis is carried out by taking half-hourly and hourly...

In a conventional still, because the water condenses underneath a glass cover, its temperature becomes quite high. During the period of maximum sunshine, the glass temperature is higher than the dew point of the air-vapour mixture inside the still. Thus the yields of these kinds of stills are...

A water heater utilising a material which changes phase for storage of solar energy is discussed. The transient analysis is carried out by replacing the solid-liquid block of the phase-changing material by a fictitious solid and assuming that the solid-liquid boundary remains stationary...

This paper presents a transient behaviour model for a single-glazed hot box type solar cooker which enables the temperatures of various elements of the cooker to be predicted. The experimental results conform well with the theoretically predicted values. In an attempt to establish a simple...

Natural convection losses between an absorber plate and the cover glazing for different gap sizes and at different plate temperatures have been predicted theoretically by various empirical correlations developed by McAdams,4 Mikheyev,3 Tabor,5 Buchberg et al.6 and Hollands et al.7 The free...

Indoor test methods for solar collectors are widely accepted and recommended by ASHRAE. The development of a solar simulator for indoor testing and the certification procedure for photo-thermal solar devices is discussed in this paper. The system consists of 14 quartz halogen lamps and provides...

In this paper an expression for the accurate computation of the overall heat loss coefficient, UL--including front, edge and rear losses--from a solar flat-plate collector has been derived. This expression is used and values of overall heat loss coefficients and overall collector efficiencies...