Kabariti, M.; Mowafi, Y.
September 1996
Renewable Energy, vol 9-4, p. 594a
The basic method to evaluate the solar collectors thermal behaviour is characterized by a general test method, that is testing of flat plate collectors efficiency under nearly steady state conditions while it might be impossible to guarantee steady state conditions for solar water heater systems installed in the actual applications.
A test method for solar water heater system by means of a whole system testing was developed to characterize the thermal behaviour for a thermosyphon solar water heating system with flat plate collector of 3.7 m2 and 150 liter hot water storage under non-stationarity conditions, that is unsteady state conditions.
The new test method is validated through comparing its results with the results of separate tests of the collectors and storage of the SWH system. The yearly energy gain is predicted by simulating the whole system using the modular structured program TRNSYS[3].
The comparison between the results of the two test methods shows an agreement in the predicted yearly energy gain for the same data base within 4%.
Source: www.sciencedirect.com