An experimental platform for heat pipe solar collector testing

Abstract

An experimental platform for testing solar collectors has been designed and built at Southeast University, China. In this article, the structure and the detailed operation of this platform are presented. The performance of an evacuated heat pipe solar collector, in which a heat-pipe is used to transfer the heat from the collector to the water, is investigated experimentally by using the developed platform. The investigation is focused on the instantaneous efficiency and its correlations with the receiver and absorber areas, the effective heat capacity, the incidence angle modifier and the pressure drop. In addition, the theoretical analysis of the solar collector is carried out for these parameters. The thermal behavior and performance of this solar collector is acquired through the experimental results by using this developed platform. This platform is also suitable for experimental investigation of other types of solar collectors. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.