Influence of triangular spoilers on the performance of serpentine solar air heaters

Abstract

In order to improve the efficiency of the conventional serpentine solar air heaters, this article proposed a serpentine solar air heater containing a triangular spoiler. A 3-D verified mathematical model of serpentine solar air heaters with triangular spoilers was established. The results showed that the arranging triangular spoiler had a positive effect on enhancing the thermal performance of solar air heaters. It could be seen from the velocity and temperature contours that the triangular spoiler could reduce the intensity and area of the vortex zones, and hence decrease the temperature dead zone in the flow channel. The collection efficiency reached its peak value when the angle of triangular spoiler was 64°. Compared with the nontriangular spoiler, the collection efficiency was increased by 4.4% ∼6.2%. In general, the optimal angle of triangular spoiler was determined to be 40° by comprehensive analysis of effective efficiency.

Keywords:

• Effective efficiency
• temperature dead zone
• triangular spoiler
• vortex

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51976111), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2020KE020, ZR2021ME185), and the Science and Technology SMEs Innovation Capacity Enhancement Project of Shandong Province (No. 2022TSGC2144, 2022TSGC2322).