[Bldg-sim] Solar Collector Design

[Jeff Haberl]

FYI. 

Much of the research in this area was done in the 1980s and was documented in numerous SERI, Sandia and Los Alamos reports. Some of it continues today. Several handbooks document this, for example Kreider's book. 

Duffie & Beckman does a good job with most concentrating and tracking collector types. Kreider also had a textbook on medium and high temperature processes that covered a wider range of collectors.  

For ease of use, the FCHART software, available from Klein & Beckman easily analyzes many types of concentrating collectors using the utilizability method if you know the input parameters. I believe NREL also has an on-line analysis, as does our lab at ecalc.tamu.edu. 

There are also certain types of collectors that were extremely clever and good performers, although not in production today. For example the CPC collector with an evacuated tube, such as Sunmaster made. These were amazing collectors, but suffered from shattering under flash conditions. Today, evacuated tube collectors such as Thermomax do a great job and have reduced the flash problem using heat pipes. We used a collector of this type for our Solar Decathlon 2007 entry, papers and a report on this can be found on our website (we won the hot water prize).  Such collectors are hands-down winners for very cold climates. 

 Hopefully, more clever solutions will come along like these. 

Jeff 
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Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D., P.E., FASHRAE...................jhaberl at tamu.edu

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----- Original Message -----
From: Marcus [mailto:jones.0bj3 at gmail.com]
Cc: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org <bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org>
Sent: Mon Feb 28 02:33:41 2011
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] Solar Collector Design

As Lars pointed out, if you are indeed investigating a concentrating collector (with a reflector), then the problem is probably more complex than modelling a flat plate collector due to the importance of radiative transfer. It looks like CoDePro only models flat plate collectors, but I've never used it. There might be other tools out there, but if the design is truly custom, you might need to develop your own computer model in something like EES (which is exactly what CoDePro is) or Matlab, etc. 

Regardless, the most complete reference for solar collector modelling is the book "Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes" by Duffie and Beckman. 

Cheers,

Marcus
-- 
Marcus Jones, LEED AP, M.Sc. 
Freelance energy consultant
Vienna, Austria


On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 4:35 PM, Lars O. Grobe <grobe at gmx.net> wrote:


	Hi!



		For component level modeling challenges like constructing custom
		solar thermal collectors, what sort of simulation tools would others
		recommend to evaluate, i.e. heat transfer through different types of
		enclosure materials into the receiving fluid, or different reflector
		shapes?
		


	Hm, I am curious about replies here. Wouldn't it make sense to break up the problem? Reflector design mostly would be about radiative transfer, so optical simulation tools would lead to an assessment of the irradiance on your absorbing surfaces. The second step would be to find the heat flow inside the piping as well as between pipes and surrounding.
	
	Cheers, Lars.
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