Solar Energy Engineering

Chapter four

Performance of Solar Collectors

The thermal performance of solar collectors can be determined by the detailed analysis of the optical and thermal characteristics of the collector materials and collector design, as outlined in Chapter 3, or by experimental performance testing under control conditions. It should be noted that the accuracy of the heat transfer analysis depends on uncertainties in the determination of the heat transfer coefficients, which is difficult to achieve, due to the non-uniform temperature boundary conditions that exist in solar collectors. Such analysis is usually carried out during the development of prototypes, which are then tested under defined environmental conditions. In general, experimental verification ...