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Energy, exergy, and economic analysis of tubular solar air heater with porous material: An experimental study

Research Authors
Saleh Abo-Elfadl, Mohamed S Yousef, MF El-Dosoky, Hamdy Hassan
Research Date
Research Year
2021
Research Journal
Applied Thermal Engineering
Research Publisher
Elsevier
Research Vol
196
Research_Pages
117294
Research Website
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1359431121007304
Research Abstract

The performance of solar air heater of having a new design tubular absorber of adjacent parallel tubes called tubular is investigated experimentally via energy, exergy, energy payback time, exergoeconomic, and enviroeconomic approaches. Moreover, the impact of utilizing porous material on the tubular heat performance is analyzed and compared to flat plate air heater at air mass flow rates; 0.075, 0.05, and 0.025 kg/s for single and double passes. Results indicate that the tubular heater has higher net energy gain, output air temperature, energy and exergy efficiencies, and smaller energy loss compared to the flat heater. Using porous material and double pass increases the output air temperature of tubular air heater by 3.4 °C and flat one by 17.7 °C at 0.025 kg/s. Moreover, utilizing porous material with the tubular heater at 0.075 kg/s enhances the energy efficiency by 3.5% and 8.9% and exergy efficiency by 8.2% and 0.9% for single and double pass, respectively. Air pumping power of the tubular heater is greater than flat but its value is very small to influence the tubular net useful energy. Finally, the tubular air heater is more effective compared to flat based on energy payback time, energy cost, exergoeconomic, and enviroeconomic parameters.