Effects of thermal conductivity and geometry of materials on the temperature variation in packed bed solar air heater

The efficiency of energy collection of a flat plate type of solar air heater is low because of the large thermal losses and low heat transfer coefficient between the absorber plate and the air flowing in the duct. Packed beds have been successfully employed for the enhancement of the heat transfer coefficients in solar air heaters and such air heaters can be used for drying agricultural produce and space heating as well. This article deals with the theoretical investigation on the effects of thermal conductivity of material and geometry of a screen on the temperature variation in woven wire screen packed bed solar air heater. Theoretical results have been compared with the experimental results reported earlier by other researchers and found to match reasonably well with them. It has been found that the thermal performance depends upon a little on the thermal conductivity of screen material. Instead, it depends more on the geometry and an extinction coefficients of the matrix. A low value of extinction coefficient is desirable for maximum absorption of solar radiations and minimum thermal losses. The numerical method of analysis used here is based on finite difference approximation. The finite difference equations have been solved through a computer program in C++.