Review of the thermal efficiency of a tube-type solar air heaters

Abstract

There is an urgent need to provide evidence that solar air heaters can be effective for heating and ventilating low-rise buildings. Solar air heaters are devices that can convert solar energy into thermal energy for moderate and low-temperature applications such as space heating, preheating, crop drying, and the food industry. However, its efficiency is low due to the low heat transfer coefficient between the absorber and the flowing air, but they are also simple to construct and operate as there is low-risk leakage of heat transfer liquids. The two main types of solar air heaters are flat plate and tube-type. To date, flat plate solar air heaters have received the most attention in the research literature, but evidence of the efficiency gains from using tube-type solar air heaters is growing.

The study aims to provide up-to-date information on tube-type solar air heaters, which will help advance the development and uptake of solar air heaters. The research showed that thermal efficiency gains could be achieved by altering the design of the solar air heater including different artificial roughness geometries inside the tubes, integrating solar thermal energy systems, application of coatings or reflectors inside the solar air heaters, or using evacuated tubes and micro heat pipe array systems. This literature study showed that evacuated tubes and micro heat pipe array systems have higher thermal efficiency than other techniques. Based on the detailed discussion of various techniques for improving the thermal efficiency of solar air heaters, a new roughness geometry was proposed.