Thermal Performance of Aluminum Oxide based Nanofluids in Flat Plate Solar Collector
Ramalingam Senthil
Ramalingam Senthil, Department of Mechanical Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Chennai (Tamil Nadu), India.
Manuscript received on 18 February 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 27 February 2019 | Manuscript published on 28 February 2019 | PP: 445-448 | Volume-8 Issue-3, February 2019 | Retrieval Number: C580002831919/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: A flat plate solar collector is investigated using nanofluid as heat transfer fluid in this work. Collector aperture area is 0.135 m2 . Nanofluid is a mixture of alumina-oxide and distilled water. Size of the nanoparticle is 20 -30 nm size. Experiments carried out using distilled water and 5.0% of the mass of Al2O3 nanoparticles at single flow rates of 0.051 kg/s and different radiation intensity 600, 800, 1000 W/m2 . Indoor experiments are conducted with the solar sun simulator. The promising results are obtained around 21% improved heat gain as well as around 20% reduction in the heat input required to provide the same heat requirements. Further, the addition of nanoparticles to the working fluid improves the productivity of the solar collectors with more heat gain.
Keywords: Flat Plate Collector, Thermal Efficiency, Nanofluid, Solar Thermal Collector.
Scope of the Article: Thermal Engineering