• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1237-1245
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• 1993

In this study, a model of a flat plate solar collector using a heat pipe was manufactured and tested to investigate such operational characteristics of the present system of solar collector as start-up process, temperature distribution on the absorber plate and operation of the heat pipe. Moreover, collector efficiency was measured for 20-30 minutes of operation at various conditions of weather and the result was compared with that tested by Hill et. a. for a flat plate solar collector using direct circulation of coolant. Some results obtained in this study could be summarized as follows. (1) The required time for the initial start-up process was about 5-6 minutes, but the heat pipe began to operate as soon as the absorber plate was exposed to solar radiation. (2) On the absorber plate, the temperature distributions in axial direction maintained nearly constant, while temperature distributions in transversal direction showed smooth decrease with $3-5^{\cird}C$ along with solar radiation. (3) Thermal inertia of the collector system had a favorable effect to damp the turbulent variation of solar radiation. (4) The collector efficiency of the present system showed nearly the same tendency but a decrease of about 10% compared with that using direct circulation of coolant.