Flow distribution in unglazed transpired plate solar air heaters of large area

Abstract Unglazed transpired plate solar air heaters have proven to be effective in heating outside air on a once-through basis for ventilation and drying applications. Outside air is sucked through unglazed plates having uniformly distributed perforations. The air is drawn into a plenum behind the plate and then supplied to the application by fans. Large collectors have been built that cover the sides of sizeable buildings, and the problem of designing the system so that the air is sucked uniformly everywhere (or nearly so) has proven to be a challenging one. This article describes an analytical tool that has been developed to predict the flow distribution over the collector. It is based on modelling the flow-field in the plenum by means of a commercial CFD (computational fluid mechanics) code, incorporating a special set of boundary conditions to model the plate and the ambient air. This article presents the 2D version of the code, and applies it to the problem of predicting the flow distribution in still air (no wind) conditions, a situation well treated by a 2D code. Results are presented for a wide range of conditions, and design implications are discussed. An interesting finding of the study is that the heat transfer at the back of the plate can play an important role, and because of this heat transfer, the efficiency of a collector in non-uniform flow can can actually be greater than that of the same collector in uniform flow.