Mathematical Model Development of Evacuated Glass-Thermal Absorber Tube Collector (EGATC) for Air Heating Application

Abstract

For decades, solar energy as one of the endless energy sources has become the most public preference as a means to accommodate space heating. Various studies on solar thermal technologies have been worked out to replace outdated systems. However, conventional solar thermal systems offer two drawbacks such as diffuse solar radiation conditions that can lead to insufficient heating during the winter and autumn, and limitations of the solar collector orientation that need to be opposed at a correct tilted angle towards maximize the performance of the system. Previous study had proposed an integrated design that consists of the evacuated tube and pre-heating double pass flow thermal absorber arrangement namely Evacuated Glass-Thermal Absorber Tube Collector (EGATC) to overcome these problems. Therefore, this research has discussed further on the formulated mathematical equation of the design. EGATC components used to convert solar radiation into heat that stabilized and increased the outlet temperature were evacuated glass, thermal absorber and working fluid. The equation related to each component were developed based on the first law of thermodynamic. The combination of developed equation forms a solar thermal collector model for the system.