Analysis of serpentine coil with alternating flattened axis: An insight into performance enhancement of solar ponds

The fluid flow inside a curved tube is an effective technique to extract the heat restored in the solar ponds. This study aims to analyze the performance of the serpentine coils with alternating flattened axis. Thus, the desired models are fabricated and tested using an experimental setup that simulates the solar pond conations. Numerical simulations are also carried out at the same conditions because the possible mechanisms can be attributed to the synergy between velocity vectors and temperature isotherms. It is found that the maximum deviations between the experimental data and the numerical results are less than ?10%. The results show that the heat extraction enhances with decreasing the segment length (a) and transition length (b) but increasing the flattened depth (c). At the studied ranges, the enhancements are between 1.5% and 88.2%. Accordingly, the penalty in pumping power is between 19.9% and 665.9% depending on geometric parameters. The best models are introduced according to the adopted overall performance index, which has an increasing trend with the mass flow rate. The maximum performance index of 1.32 is recorded for an enhanced model with a = 10 mm, b = 5 mm, and c = 2 mm at the mass flow rate of 0.011136 kg/s.

Automated summary

This study analyzes the performance of serpentine coils with alternating flattened axis for heat extraction in solar ponds using experimental testing and numerical simulations. It is found that heat extraction is enhanced with decreasing segment and transition length, and increasing flattened depth. The best models are introduced based on an overall performance index, which increases with mass flow rate.