Simulasi Numerik untuk Pola Sebaran Suhu Kolektor Surya Pelat Datar Tipe Back-pass Cover Semi Tertutup

Abstract

Solar energy is abundantly available, so this energy is very potential to be developed, especially in Indonesia. One of the alternative to utilize solar energy is using back-pass flat plate solar collector. The thermal energy produced by the collector can be used for crop drying. In this study, the back-pass flat plate solar collector with semi-closed cover was connected to a drying box and the thermal energy will flow into it. The effect of variation of the length of cover percentage at several tilt angle to the collector performance (temperature distribution and mass flow rate) were investigated experimentally and numerically. Numerical simulation result showed that cover of 60% had adequated to produce the air temperature above 40oC that can be used for drying most of agricultural products. Increasing percentage of cover to 80% or 100% did not improve air temperature significantly. Even the effect would increase collector manufacturing cost. The results of numerical simulations showed that tilt angle 45o had optimum mass flow rate, it was about 0.009 kg/s. Validation with experiment data showed that total error was below 10% and R2 varied from 0.76 until 0.98. Simulation of temperature distribution in drying box showed that temperature varied from 41 oC until 51 oC with error below 10% and R2 varied from 0.93-0.98.