Artificial roughness on the absorber plate of a Solar Air Heater (SAH) is a popular technique for increasing its effective efficiency. The study investigated the effect of geometrical parameters of discrete multi-arc ribs (DMAR) installed below the SAH absorber plate on the effective efficiency. The effects of major roughness factors, such as number of gaps (Ng = 1-4), rib pitch (p/e = 4-16), rib height (e/D = 0.018-0.045), gab width (wg/e = 0.5-2), angle of attack ( = 30-75), and Reynolds number (Re= 2000-20000) on the performance of a SAH are studied. The performance of the SAH is evaluated using a top-down iterative technique. The results show that as Re rises, SAH-effective DMAR's efficiency first ascends to a specified value of Re to attain the maximum values then falls. The useful energy gained via SAH-DMAR is higher by an average of12% when compared to smooth SAH. According to the findings, the effective efficiency of SAH-DMAR is 9.4% higher thanthat of smooth SAH. The maximum thermal efficiency of SAH-DMAR and smooth SAH is 81.1 % and 74.7 %, respectively.
University of Baghdad
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