Numerical Analysis of a Three Dimensional Fluid Flow in a Flat Plate Solar Collector

Flat plate solar collectors are the most common thermal collectors used among the various solar collectors for domestic and industrial purposes. The objective of this study is to perform computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of flat plate collector with air flow. In this paper, the CFD tool has been used to simulate the solar collector for better understanding of its heat transfer capability. Using a 3D model of the collector involving air inlet, the collector is modeled by ANSYS Workbench and the grid was created in ANSYS ICEM. The results were obtained by using ANSYS FLUENT. The objective of this work is to compare theoretical and experimental achieved work toward the given work by using CFD tool with respect to flow and temperature distribution inside the solar collector. The outlet temperature of air was compared with experimental results and there was a good agreement between them.