The Study of Water Media in Green Tower’s Solar Collector

  • Authors

    • Zainoor Hailmee Solihin
    • Wirachman Wisnoe
    • Ramlan Zailani
    • Noriah Yusoff
    2018-11-30
    https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.25.22406
  • Green Tower, Water Media, Efficiency, Solar Energy, Solar Collector

  • Abstract

    In general, the solar collector of a Green Tower is either air-filled or empty space. This condition allows the solar chimney to have constant air flow supply from the solar collector. In this study, water media is introduced inside the solar collector as an effort to increase the performance of the Green Tower. As solar energy is harvested, energy is stored inside the collector. Thus, this study investigates the Green Tower performance using the solar collector with water-filled media.  The investigation is done by simulating the solar collector with water-filled condition using Computer Fluid and Dynamic (CFD) software. From here, the viability of employing the water-filled solar collector is validated. This report presents the mathematical model of the understudied conditions and compared against the experimental as well as simulation data. The simulation results show that the Green Tower's performance is very promising with good temperature output were recorded at 55°C and temperature difference between CFD2 (water medium) and CFD1 (air medium) was steadily recorded at approximately 12°C. Increased in the resulting temperature is observed by using the water-filled solar collector.  However, the air velocity is recorded near identical between CFD1 and CFD2 due to thermal coefficient of water is higher compared to air thus resist the heat to be transferred into the heat exchanger. In conclusion, the temperature distribution inside the Green Tower is increased because of using water as a medium inside the solar collector.  But, the heat stored inside the collector remains longer with water-filled medium thus, this condition allows the Green Tower to function during the night time as well; when the solar radiation is unavailable.

     

     

  • References

    1. [1] C. Afonso and A. Oliveira, “Solar chimneys: Simulation and experiment,†Energy Build., vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 71–79, 2000.

      [2] S. Jörg, B. Rudolf, S. Wolfgang, and W. Gerhard, “Design of Commercial Solar Tower Systems – Utilization of Solar Induced,†Int. Sol. Energy Conf., no. March, pp. 15–18, 2003.

      [3] T. Ming, W. Liu, Y. Pan, and G. Xu, “Numerical analysis of flow and heat transfer characteristics in solar chimney power plants with energy storage layer,†Energy Convers. Manag., vol. 49, no. 10, pp. 2872–2879, 2008.

      [4] G. Xu, T. Ming, Y. Pan, F. Meng, and C. Zhou, “Numerical analysis on the performance of solar chimney power plant system,†Energy Convers. Manag., vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 876–883, 2011.

      [5] M. Tingzhen, L. Wei, X. Guoling, X. Yanbin, G. Xuhu, and P. Yuan, “Numerical simulation of the solar chimney power plant systems coupled with turbine,†Renew. Energy, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 897–905, 2008.

      [6] Z. H. Solihin and W. Wisnoe, “Experimental Field Study of Green Tower Setup,†Adv. Mater. Res., vol. 1113, no. February 2012, pp. 782–788, 2015.

      [7] Z. H. Solihin, N. Yusoff, and A. A. Hamid, “The Influence of Malaysian Climate in Varying the Temperatures on the Solar Oven Performance,†in Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering, 2010, no. December, pp. 590–593.

      [8] A. K. and T. Chitsomboon, “Effect of Tower Area Change on the Potential of Solar Tower,†2nd Jt. Int. Conf. “Sustainable Energy Environ. (SEE 2006)", vol. 029, no. November, pp. 2–7, 2006.

      [9] A. Koonsrisuk and T. Chitsomboon, “Accuracy of theoretical models in the prediction of solar chimney performance,†Sol. Energy, vol. 83, no. 10, pp. 1764–1771, 2009.

      [10] A. Koonsrisuk and T. Chitsomboon, “Mathematical modeling of solar chimney power plants,†Energy, vol. 51, pp. 314–322, 2013.

      [11] G. Gan and S. B. Riffat, “A numerical study of solar chimney for natural ventilation of buildings with heat recovery,†Appl. Therm. Eng., vol. 18, no. 12, pp. 1171–1187, 1998.

      [12] Z. H. Solihin, W. Wisnoe, R. Zailani, and N. Yusoff, “Design and Simulation of a Rectangular Solar Collector for the Green Tower Development,†J. Mech. Eng., vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 10–20, 2018.

      [13] X. Zhou, J. Yang, B. Xiao, and G. Hou, “Experimental study of temperature field in a solar chimney power setup,†Appl. Therm. Eng., vol. 27, no. 11–12, pp. 2044–2050, 2007.

      [14] J. K. Afriyie, H. Rajakaruna, M. a a Nazha, and F. K. Forson, “Mathematical modelling and validation of the drying process in a Chimney-Dependent Solar Crop Dryer,†Energy Convers. Manag., vol. 67, pp. 103–116, 2013.

      [15] Z. H. Solihin, W. Wisnoe, N. Yusoff, and W. S. Wan Mohammad, “Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Double Layer Quintuple Solar Oven,†Appl. Mech. Mater., vol. 393, pp. 759–766, 2013.

      [16] S. Beerbaum and G. Weinrebe, “Solar thermal power generation in India - A techno-economic analysis,†Renew. Energy, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 153–174, 2000.

  • Downloads

  • How to Cite

    Hailmee Solihin, Z., Wisnoe, W., Zailani, R., & Yusoff, N. (2018). The Study of Water Media in Green Tower’s Solar Collector. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7(4.25), 104-108. https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.25.22406

    Received date: 2018-11-30

    Accepted date: 2018-11-30

    Published date: 2018-11-30