The Effects of Water Flow Rates on the Performance of a Capillary Tube Solar Collector for Greenhouse Heating

온실 난방을 위한 모세관형 태양열 집열기의 성능에 미치는 유량의 효과에 관한 연구

To use effectively the solar energy in greenhouse heating, a high performance solar collector should be developed. And then the size of the solar collector and thermal storage tank should be determined through the calculation of heating load. The solar collector must be set in the optimum tilt angle and direction to take daily solar radiation maximally, and the flow rate of heat transfer fluid through the solar collector should be kept in the optimum range. In this research, the performance tests of a capillary tube solar collector were performed to determine the optimum water flow rate and the results summarized as follows. 1. The regressive equations for efficiency estimations of the capillary tube solar collector in the open loop were modeled in the water flow rate of 700-l,000 $\ell$/hr. 2. The optimum water flow rate of the solar collector was estimated by the second order polynomial regression and the maximum efficiency was 80% at the water flow rate of 850 $\ell$/hr. 3. The solar thermal storage system consisted of a capillary tube solar collector and a water storage tank was tested at the water flow rate of 850 $\ell$/hr in the closed loop, and obtained the solar thermal storage efficiency of 55.2%. 4. As the capillary tube solar collector engaged in this experiment was made of non-corrosive polyolefin tubes, its weight was as light as 1/30 of the flat plate solar collector made of copper tubes. Therefore it was considered to be suitable for the greenhouse heating system.