Study of Solar Collector Potential in Thailand Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Approach

Due to the proximity of Thailand being near the equator, there is a significant potential for harnessing an excess amount of solar energy using a solar collector. The solar collector harvests solar energy by acting as a passive heat exchanger, receiving solar energy, and transferring it to a fluid medium to be further utilized. This study presents the analysis of temperature outlet and pressure drop of a solar collector in Thailand, utilizing Earth’s geological location, date, and time for solar energy calculations and employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to predict the collector’s efficiency. The CFD approach offers a reduction in the cost of experiments and environmental impact by minimizing waste from constructing experimental prototype equipment. A closed loop solar collector for a water heater system with the width of 100 mm and the length of 1,000 mm made with copper is selected for this study. The boundary conditions of the model are collected from the experimental data to ensure high accuracy during the validation process. The grid independence is done to ensure high accuracy simulation with CFD. The study also compares the collector performance with another geological location and with different water mass flow rates in the range of 0.554 to 2.582 g s-1. The results confirm the potential of solar collectors in Thailand by achieving efficiency an of 69.61% at 11 a.m. with 2.332 g s-1of mass flow rate.