A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater

Yadav, Anil Singh; Alam, Tabish; Gupta, Gaurav; Saxena, Rajiv; Gupta, Naveen Kumar; Allamraju, K. Viswanath; Kumar, Rahul; Sharma, Neeraj; Sharma, Abhishek; Pandey, Utkarsh; Agrawal, Yogesh

doi:10.3390/en15218045

Open AccessArticle

A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater

by

Anil Singh Yadav

^1,*

,

Tabish Alam

²,

Gaurav Gupta

^3,*,

Rajiv Saxena

⁴,

Naveen Kumar Gupta

⁵,

K. Viswanath Allamraju

⁶

,

Rahul Kumar

⁷

,

Neeraj Sharma

⁸,

Abhishek Sharma

^9,*

,

Utkarsh Pandey

¹⁰ and

Yogesh Agrawal

¹¹

¹

Mechanical Engineering Department, IES College of Technology, Bhopal 462044, Madhya Pradesh, India

²

CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee 247667, Uttarakhand, India

³

School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632014, Tamilnadu, India

⁴

Mechanical Engineering Department, Infinity Management and Engineering College, Sagar 470001, Madhya Pradesh, India

⁵

Mechanical Engineering Department, Institute of Engineering & Technology, GLA University, Mathura 281406, Uttar Pradesh, India

⁶

Mechanical Engineering Department, Institute of Aeronautical Engineering, Hyderabad 500043, Telangana, India

⁷

School of Mechanical Engineering, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara 144001, Punjab, India

⁸

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Maharishi Markandeshwar Engineering College, Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to Be University), Mullana, Ambala 133207, Haryana, India

⁹

Mechanical Engineering Department, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur 303007, Rajasthan, India

¹⁰

Production and Industrial Engineering Department, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra 835215, Jharkhand, India

¹¹

Mechanical Engineering Department, Sagar Institute of Research & Technology, Bhopal 462041, Madhya Pradesh, India

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Energies 2022, 15(21), 8045; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218045

Submission received: 7 August 2022 / Revised: 17 September 2022 / Accepted: 26 September 2022 / Published: 29 October 2022

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Computational Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer and Energy Impacts)

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Abstract

Solar air heating devices have been employed in a wide range of industrial and home applications for solar energy conversion and recovery. It is a useful technique for increasing the rate of heat transfer by artificially creating repetitive roughness on the absorbing surface in the form of semicircular ribs. A thermo-hydraulic performance analysis for a fully developed turbulent flow through rib-roughened solar air heater (SAH) is presented in this article by employing computational fluid dynamics. Both 2-dimensional geometrical modeling and numerical solutions were performed in the finite volume package ANSYS FLUENT. The renormalization-group (RNG) k-ε turbulence model was used, as it is suitable for low Reynolds number (Re) turbulent flows. A thermo-hydraulic performance analysis of an SAH was carried out for a ranging Re, 3800–18,000 (6 sets); relative roughness pitch (RRP), 5–25 (12 sets); relative roughness height (RRH), 0.03–0.06 (3 sets); and heat flux, 1000 W/m². The numerical analysis revealed that with an RRP of 5 and an RRH of 0.06, the roughened duct produces the highest augmentation in average Nu_r in the order of 2.76 times that of a plain duct at an Re of 18,000. With an RRP = 10 and RRH = 0.06, the roughened duct was found to provide the most optimum thermo-hydraulic performance parameter (THPP). The THPP was determined to have a maximum value of 1.98 when the Re is equal to 15,000. It was found that semi-circular ribs which have a rib pitch = 20 mm and a rib height = 2 mm can be applied in an SAH to enhance heat transfer.

Keywords: solar energy; CFD; heat transfer; fluid flow; Nusselt number

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MDPI and ACS Style

Yadav, A.S.; Alam, T.; Gupta, G.; Saxena, R.; Gupta, N.K.; Allamraju, K.V.; Kumar, R.; Sharma, N.; Sharma, A.; Pandey, U.; et al. A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater. Energies 2022, 15, 8045. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218045

AMA Style

Yadav AS, Alam T, Gupta G, Saxena R, Gupta NK, Allamraju KV, Kumar R, Sharma N, Sharma A, Pandey U, et al. A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater. Energies. 2022; 15(21):8045. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218045

Chicago/Turabian Style

Yadav, Anil Singh, Tabish Alam, Gaurav Gupta, Rajiv Saxena, Naveen Kumar Gupta, K. Viswanath Allamraju, Rahul Kumar, Neeraj Sharma, Abhishek Sharma, Utkarsh Pandey, and et al. 2022. "A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater" Energies 15, no. 21: 8045. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218045

APA Style

Yadav, A. S., Alam, T., Gupta, G., Saxena, R., Gupta, N. K., Allamraju, K. V., Kumar, R., Sharma, N., Sharma, A., Pandey, U., & Agrawal, Y. (2022). A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater. Energies, 15(21), 8045. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15218045

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A Numerical Investigation of an Artificially Roughened Solar Air Heater

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