Bottle - Neck in Solar Flat Plate Collector: An Experimental Investigation and Feasibility Study of Usage of Evacuated Tube Solar Collector for High Salinity Area

Abstract

Today the solar energy plays a vital role in various sectors. Even though the solar flat plate collector technology has been matured but in filed the technology failed because of salt deposition of raisers. Hence the present paper investigates the failure analysis of 500 LPD solar water heater installed in 2010. The main cause of failure is the salt deposition. Further in depth study on flow distribution inside the solar flat plate collector revealed that there is a non-uniformity in the flow of each raiser. The same has been ascertained with a collector on a standard test bed condition. The collector performance characteristics have been estimated for the decade year solar flat plate collector. Detailed comparison chart has been proposed and reported. To overcome this effect a new Evacuated Tube collector has been proposed. A 10-year-old evacuated tube collector installed for domestic application has been taken for study and reported.