PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF A V-GROOVE BACK-PASS SOLAR COLLECTOR

The study conducted by the Solar Energy Research Group, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia shows that solar energy has a great potential to be used in drying processes. A prototype solar drying system was designed and tested in the campus (Othman et. al, 1994). The study shows that the system can be upgraded by improving the solar collector. This paper presents the preliminary result on the performance of the V-groove back-pass solar collector modified from V-groove double flow solar collector designed earlier (Othman et. al, 1992). The results shows that the collector maintained the output temperature eventhough there are changes of solar radiation intensity. At 0.65 ms−1 air flow rate, the output temperature of the collector can manage to maintain 40°C in the range of solar intensity of 800 Wm−2 to 300 Wm−2 within 15 minutes time interval, and at 0.45 ms−1, the output temperature is 43°C in the range of solar intensity of 800 Wm−2 to 600 Wm−2. The min daily efficiency of 20% is recorded at 450 Wm−2 of min daily solar radiation at 0.65 ms−1 flow rate. At 0.45 ms−1 flow rate with the equal amount of daily min solar radiation the min daily efficiency is 13%. The result is expected to be better if the study is conducted in May - June when the weather is better.