Research of unglazed transpired solar collector using computational fluid dynamics method

Abstract

Unglazed transpired solar collector is an ideal environmentally friendly and costless way to preheat outdoor air using solar energy. Such a device is an air solar collector, which is used to preheat outdoor air with solar radiation energy, installed on mostly irradiated by sun building façade, which is usually south one. Unglazed transpired solar collector is also often called “solar wall” as it is usually installed on a building outer wall. The purpose of this article is to numerically investigate the operation of the unglazed transpired solar collector (“solar wall”) work in a moderate intermediate (Lithuanian) climate, using “ANSYS Fluent” computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package. There is a Vilnius Gediminas technical university (VGTU) Environmental engineering faculty unglazed transpired solar collector investigated. It is installed on Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (“VILNIUS TECH”) Environmental engineering faculty building. It is owned by the laboratory of building energy and indoor climate systems. The total area of the solar wall equals to 100 m². To reduce the computation time needed to obtain numerical results, a small piece of 0.085 m² of the solar wall was chosen to investigate. The paper analyses temperature and velocity variations in a selected fragment of a solar wall, also the total efficiency of collector is calculated.