Numerical simulation of natural convection in the air gap of an inclined
flat plat thermal solar collector with partitions attached to its
glazing
Abstract
In this work, the natural convection in the air gap of an inclined solar
collector contains partitions attached to its glazing has been studied
numerically. The temperatures of the two horizontal walls are constants
and different. The two vertical walls are supposed adiabatic. The
equations of the problem are solved with the finite volume method, using
of the Fluent software. The necessary objective is to study the
influence of the partitions (length and number) on the natural
convection in the air gap of the solar collector. The obtained results
indicate that the presence of the partitions has important influence on
the heat transfer with the decreasing of heat losses with natural
convection, so improving of the solar collector efficiency. In this
study, it reached that the number of partitions must be higher than 10,
and their optimal length is Lp=0.4. The presence of the partitions with
the optimal values reduces the heat losses by natural convection with 46
%.