Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Sadhana - Academy Proceedings in Engineering Sciences, cilt.51, sa.1, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Solar energy is meeting global energy demand due to its cost-effectiveness, environmental friendliness and clean status. A solar air heater (SAH) is a technology that harnesses solar energy to heat air for various applications, such as space heating, drying processes or ventilation. The primary objective of this work is to examine the performance of parallel-pass SAHs employing flat, grooved and finned absorber plates by numerical modelling. Longitudinal fins were employed on the upper and lower surfaces of the absorber in the finned SAH. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach has been employed to estimate the thermal and flow characteristics of a parallel-pass flat plate SAH (PPFPSAH), a parallel-pass v-grooved SAH (PPVSAH) and a parallel-pass finned SAH (PPFSAH). The three SAHs have been evaluated using numerical analysis and validated against experimental results from studies employing identical models. The thermal efficiency, pressure loss, Nusselt number and temperature variation of SAHs have been evaluated at varied flow rates of 0.023, 0.015 and 0.011 kg/s. In addition, PPFPSAH, PPVSAH and PPFSAH were compared numerically. Numerical results indicate that the thermal efficiency and pressure drop of SAHs increase with a rise in mass flow rate. The maximum temperature differentials in a PPFPSAH, PPVSAH and PPFSAH were 16.4°C, 22.2°C and 32.9°C respectively, recorded at a flow rate of 0.011 kg/s. The highest thermal efficiency of 81.95% was attained in PPVSAH at a flow rate of 0.023 kg/s. The calculated pressure drop values for SAHs ranged from 0.39 to 1.54 Pa. The highest deviations observed between the empirical and simulated output temperatures were 8.19% for PPFPSAH, 6.95% for PPVSAH and 11.03% for PPFSAH.