Design of a Solar Air Heating Collector from Steel Cans

Numerous research works have examined the efficiency of both single- and double-pass solar air heaters. These investigations cover the pressure drop in ducts, flow phenomena, heat transfer enhancement, and solar air heater design. Recycled aluminum cans are used as the absorbing material in this project’s experimental work, which is based on an energy analysis of a solar air heating collector. The tops and bottoms of the cans will be drilled out, and they will be assembled into vertical columns through which air flows. The sun heats the cans with black paint. The air rising through the can’s columns absorbs the solar heat. A single-pass solar air heating collector with a single cover has been created. The effectiveness of the most important design and environmental parameters, such as mass flow rate and ambient temperature, on the model’s performance, was examined. Temperatures at the inlet and outlet, as well as thermal heat flow, were calculated. All of the can columns receive room air from a manifold at the bottom, and heated air is collected and distributed back to the room by a manifold akin to the one at the top of the collector. An efficient collector combines a large amount of heat transfer area from the cans to the air with uniform air distribution throughout the collector. The creation and testing of an effective single-glass air solar collector with an absorber plate composed of recyclable aluminum cans (RAC) are detailed in this project. This collector was created as a suggestion on how to construct air solar collector absorber plates at a reasonable cost by recycling recyclable materials. The collector’s absorber plate was made up of eight airflow channels with a circular cross-section made of 54 recyclable aluminum cans. Seven reusable cans, each with an absorptance of 0.903, were painted black using an opaque black paint that was widely available.