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Asst. Prof. Dr. Karima E. Amori*, Nooraddin Saad Jabouri

Thermal Effects of Converging or Diverging

Risers on Solar Hot Water System


Abstract— This experimental study includes two parts; first is a comparison between the performance of two locally fabricated
similar solar water heaters. One of the flat plate collectors is a new design of accelerated absorber, its risers are of converging ducts
(the exit area is half the entrance). The other collector is of conventional absorber (its risers have the same cross sectional area along
its length). The second part is reversing the new collector such that its risers are of diverging type. Each collector is the major part of
an indirect thermosyphon circulation solar hot water system facing the south with a fixed tilt angle of 45o from the horizontal.
Concurrently experiments are conducted on the two solar water heaters from January to June of 2009 for two different water
withdrawal profiles, interrupted and no load. Results show that a considerable enhancement of thermal performance approximately
(31.5%) of absorbed heat (useful gain) at solar noon is obtained for the converging risers compared with the conventional type. The
maximum instantaneous efficiency reached for the accelerated absorbed flat plate was 60%, while that of conventional absorber
was (32%) for the same conditions. The longitudinal water temperature variations in the risers of accelerated absorber were larger
than that belong to the conventional absorber. Also the circulation rate in the accelerated absorber was higher when it is compared
with the conventional, which in turn indicate higher values compared with absorber of diverging risers.

Index Terms— Flat plate collector,Risers,Solar,, Storage tank, stratification.

I. INTRODUCTION For collector the hourly useful energy gain can be

S OLAR hot water systems function as heat

exchangers. They receive solar radiant energy and
transfer it to the flowing fluid. The performance of solar
calculated by:

Q coll  m coll C p (Tout  Tin ) (1)

systems varies as the design variables change, so it is The heat obtained by the water withdrawal can be
necessary therefore to predict the parameters affecting this calculated as
design and the operational variables.
Keltt et.al.(1984) [1] studied experimentally the Q sup  m sup C p (T18  T20 ) (2)
thermal performance of submerged coil heat exchangers for
single wall coil and double wall coil for different tank sizes Where Q coll heat transferred in W, m mass flow rate


namely (300L and 450 L) for different load flow rates. (kg/s) , C p water specific heat (J/kg.K), and Ti
Khalifa (1999) [2] investigated a thermosyphon domestic
measured temperature at location i (oC) .
hot water system to show the important variables that affect
The useful energy enhancement is calculated as:
the performance of the solar system such as the
temperature variation along the absorber fins, tubes and in
the flow direction as well as the thermosyphonic mass flow (useful energy ) acc.  (useful energy ) conv.
%enhancement 
rate. The design of an efficient storage tank heat exchanger (useful energy ) conv.
has been investigated by Shokouhmand et.. al. (2008) [3]
with different coil pitches and curvature ratios. An (3)
enhancement in heat transfer rate is obtained due to the
centrifugal force due to the curvature of the tube, results in The collector instantaneous efficiency can be determined
the secondary flow development. The objective of the according to:
present work is to investigate concurrently the thermal  coll  Q coll / (A coll * IG) (4)
performance of a locally made new solar flat plate collector The instantaneous stored energy in the storage tank is
of converging or diverging risers as part of thermosyphon evaluated as
closed type solar water heater compared with (flat plate m tan k C p
collector of straight risers) the conventional type hot water Qstored  (Tav 2  Tav1 )
system for different water withdrawal pattern. It is worthy t
to mention that to carry out a fair comparison, the (5)
collectors are made as identical as possible. Where Tav is water average temperature of the internal
41
II.THEORY cylinder; which is calculated as Tav   T / 15i
Thermal analysis is covered in many solar thermal i  27
engineering texts (Duffi & Beckman [4], and Lunde [5] ). 2,1 refer to end and initial of the time period t (taken
Therefore, only equations which describe the thermal as half an hour).
performance of the system will be described in this paper.


Manuscript received October 9, 2009. Karima Esmail Amori , Univ. of Baghdad, Eng. College, Mech. Eng. Dept. , Baghdad/ Iraq, (drkarimaa@yahoo.com)
Nooraddin Saad Jabouri Graduated MSc. student
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III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Two identical solar water heater are manufactured in this
work; one is supplied with flat plate collectors of
accelerated absorber, the other is supplied with flat plate
collector of conventional absorber. Fig.(1) shows the
configuration of solar water heater tested in this work
when its storage tank is is of two concentric cylinders.
To load
From main
supply
Fig.(1): Close Loop Themosyphon Solar Water Heater
A Accelerated Flat Plate Solar Collector
A flat plate collector with accelerator plate consist of nine
risers equal spaced parallel copper converging rectangular
cross sectional area (Fig. 2) of inlet and outlet hydraulic
diameter (20mm, 13.3mm) respectively, so the inlet and
outlet dimensions are (20x20) mm (10x20) mm
respectively , riser length of (120mm), the center to center
distance is
(100mm), each riser has an equal right and left fin length
of (40mm), these risers are connected with two headers of
rectangular cross sectional area, one at each end, to collect
or distribute water from and into risers, the joints between
the headers and risers ends are welded by using brass
alloy .
A black mat painted copper sheet is used as an absorbing
plate of (1.20 x 0.9) m and of (1.9 mm) thickness, this
sheet is welded to the risers by brass alloy, the structure are
good insulated with a fire wool coating of (70) mm
thickness.
Collector cross section
Accelerated riser
Conventional rise
Fig.(2): Configuration of manufactured flat plate collector
2
B Conventional Flat Plate Solar Collector
Conventional flat plate collector without accelerator
plate is designed identical to accelerated flat plate collector,
but its riser cross sectional area is of constant hydraulic
diameter of 20mm so the inlet and outlet cross section
dimensions are (20x20) mm,
Collectors box frame are manufactured from (2)mm
thickness galvanized sheet formed as a box, the collectors
are connected to its containers by screws , the collectors are
well insulated by using glass wool insulator of (70) mm
thickness from the back of the collectors and (50) mm
thickness from the perimeter of the collectors. A glass
panel of 4mm thickness is used as a transparent cover of
the collector with area of (1.25x0.95) m², the glass cover is
lying on the collector frame in a small channel of 25mm
wide, it is fixed by using a black silicon. A rubber tape is
fixed between the glass and channel to prevent air
leakages. The cover-absorbing plate spacing was (70) mm.
C Shell and Tube Storage Tank
Two concentric horizontal cylinders form the storage
tank made from galvanized plate of 2mm thickness, the
internal cylinder of inner diameter of (375) mm and (1m)
length and capacity of 110L, the outer cylinder of internal
diameter (470) mm and length of (1.2m), to form an
annular space of 90L, the internal cylinder is used for the
close loop water (energy carrier) while the annular space
between internal and external cylinders is used for loading
water (domestic use water). Each cylinder has two holes to
form inlet and outlet ports. The tank is well insulated by a
glass wool insulator of (70) mm thickness, the storage tank
can be oriented horizontally or vertically as required
D Temperature Measurement
. (105) calibrated thermocouples (Type T Copper and
Constantan) are used to measure the temperature at various
points of water tubes, water storage tanks, inlet and outlet
of collectors, inlet and outlet of the withdrawal water,
ambient and glass cover, as shown in Fig.(3). All these
kinds of thermocouples are joined to Digital thermometer
reader (Autonics-T4WM/ K(CA) 0-1200).The ambient
temperature is measured by a using a mercury in glass-
thermometer
E Flow Rate Measurement:
The mass flow rate of the thermosyphon circulation flat
plate collectors is so small, so only the laser flow meter can
detect the flow which in not available, so a transparent tube
of
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c o lle c to r 13 F Test Procedure

12
o u tle t The thermosyphon circulation solar water flat plate
collectors were connected as a closed loop (indirect)
7 9
8 system. The experiments were carried out from January to
July 2009. Before each test some preparations are made,
the closed collector loop was filled with water, the glass
cover is cleaned thoroughly and the measurements and
apparatus were checked. Then the storage tanks were filled
with water and taking the readings each half an hour from
sunrise to sunset. The new designed system was tested side
by side with the conventional type.
The test is conducted from sunrise to sunset for two
4 5 6
14 different load water withdrawals profiles: no load and
profile (II) shown in Fig.(4) which is equivalent to daily

L/hr
consumption of single storage tank volume. All
temperature measurements, load flow rate, circulation
rate and wind speed are recorded.

1 2 3
c o lle c to r
1 1 in le t
10
V

fla t p la te c o lle c to r

Fig.(4): Water Withdrawal Profile II

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig.(3): Coding and Locations of Temperature
Measurements
250mm length and 10mm diameter is connected between
collector outlet and storage tank inlet. An ink injection is
used to calculate the circulation rate by injecting ink and
measuring the time required to pass the (250 mm) distance
using stopwatch to compute fluid velocity. The water load
flow rate is measured by using flow meter of (2-22) L/min.
range.
Fig(5) shows the measured (each 5 minutes) ambient
temperature and solar radiation for the (24) hours of 27-1-
2009 on the solar collector which is obtained from the
ministry of science and technology solar center in
Baghdad. It is clear that the peak solar radiation was
between hours (11 to 13) the peak ambient temperature
was (19°C). Fig.(6) a & b show a comparison of the
circulation rate between the converging-conventional and
diverging-conventional respectively flat plate for load
profile II. A considerable increase in circulation rate is
recorded for the whole test time in case of converging
risers, while it is retarded for diverging risers. Since the
accelerated riser occupies lesser amount of water at the any
cross section especially at riser upper part compared with
the straight riser, so the temperature within each riser was
higher as shown in fig.(7) which leads to higher decrease
in water density then faster circulation. Fig.(8 a.) shows a
Good enhancement in the instantaneous collector efficiency
for converging risers 60% while reaches 33% for
conventional type at solar noon. It has been found that The
diverging of risers has unconsiderable effect on the
collector efficiency as shown in (Fig8 b.). A little variance
in useful heat gain is noted at the early day hours between
the diverged and conventional risers as shown in fig.(9),
larger deviations indicated after solar noon since the solar
radiation is increased till 2:00PM. Fig(10) shows that the
percentage enhancement of absorbed heat for flat plate of
converging risers increases till the solar noon (approaches
40%) then it decreases toward the sunset, while a
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continuous decrease is indicated for diverging risers. Fig. 0 .2 6

c o n v e r g in g r is e r
(11) shows the hourly stored heat in the solar hot water c o n v e n tio n a l
storage tank for both converging and conventional risers 4 -3 -2 0 0 9
collectors for no load case. At almost day hours the 0 .2 4
converging risers improved the stored energy as presented
in table (1). While at the last three hours the storage tank

c ir c u la tio n r a te (L /h r )
average temperature was larger for converging risers as
shown in (Fig. 12). 0 .2 2

IV. CONCLUSION
The following concluding remarks can be drawn
during this work which are: 0 .2 0

1- Water temperature in the risers increases

obviously with the longitudinal direction while no
significant variation recorded between risers along
0 .1 8
collector width near lower header 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
2- The natural circulation rate in the system is lo c a l tim e (h r )
significantly affected by risers type. Converging (a)
risers increasing the circulation rate while the
0 .2 8
diverging risers decreasing it. d iv e r g . r is e r 4_6_2009
3- The instantaneous efficiency of the solar collector c o n v e n tio n a l
is greatly depends on circulation rate and also 0 .2 6

depends on the temperature difference between

collector outlet and inlet temperatures ,so it is 0 .2 4

affected by type of risers.

c ir c u la tio n r a te (L /h r )
4- A considerable thermal performance enhancement 0 .2 2

is obtained for the new designed converging risers

flat plate collector 0 .2 0
5- Improvement in stored heat is obtained when
using accelerator collector. 0 .1 8
500 20

18
s o la r r a d ia t io n 0 .1 6
a m b ie n t te m p .
400 16

0 .1 4
14
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
lo c a l tim e (h r )
R a d ia tio n (W /m 2 )

300 12
(b)
Tem p ( C )

10 Fig.(6): Circulation Rate in the Collector for profile II a).

200 8
Conven.-converged b). Conven.-Diverged

100 4

2 7 -1 -2 0 0 9
2

0 0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
t im e
Fig.(5): Solar Radiation and Ambient Temperature
(27/1/2009 at 33.3o N Baghdad)
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45 45
T3
T3
T6 T6
40 40
T9 T9
40
35 35

30
30 30
Tem p. ( C )

Tem p. ( C)
20

25

enh ancem en t %
25
10

20 20
0

15 15
-1 0

A
10 10
-2 0
7 .0 8 .0 9 .0 1 0 .0 1 1 .0 1 2 .0 1 3 .0 1 4 .0 1 5 .0 1 6 .0 7 .0 8 . 0 d i v e r 9g .i n0 g - c o n 1v 0e n. 0t i o n a l1 1 . 0 1 2 .0 1 3 .0 1 4 .0 1 5 .0 1 6 .0
lo c a l tim e (h r ) c o n v e r g i n g - c o n v e n t i ol on acl a l t i m e ( h r )
7 converging Riser C-C -3 0 conventional Riser C-C
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
lo c a l tim e (h r )
6
Fig.(10):
Fig.(7): Sample of Water Temperature Percentage
distribution Enhancement
along risers In Absorbed Heat
Converging or Diverging Risers Compared With
5
60 Conventional Type
u s e fu l h e a t g a in W

4 55
d iv e r g e d r is e r
50 c o n v e n tio n a l r is e r
3
45

2 40 b). 4-6-2009
a). 4-3-2009
35
e ffic ie n c y %

1
d iv e r g in g r is e s
c o n v e n t io n a l r is e r s 30

0 25
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
lo c a l tim e (h r ) 20
Fig.(9): Collector Useful Heat Gain For Conventional
15
And Diverging Risers
10

70 5

0
4 -3 -2 0 0 9
60 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
c o n v e n tio n a l lo c a l tim e (h r )
c o n v e r g in g r is e r
50

40
e ffe c ie n c y %

30

20

10

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
lo c a l tim e (h r )
Fig.(8): Collector Instantaneous Efficiency For Load profile II
of a). Converged- Conventional risers b). Diverged- Conventional risers
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1100
c o n v e r g in g r is e r s
1000
c o n v e n tio n a l
900

800

700
Time with converging with conventional 600
risers risers 500
Temp. oC Heat W Temp. oC Heat W

H e a t (W )
400
8:00 12.27 - 12.73 - 300
8:30 12.53 68.11 12.73 0 200
9:00 13.53 255.44 13.93 306.53
100
9:30 15.53 510.88 15.13 306.53
0
10:0 18.73 817.41 17 476.83
-1 0 0
10:3 19.6 221.39 19.26 579.01
-2 0 0
11:0 20.2 153.26 20.66 357.62
-3 0 0
11:3 21.06 221.38 22..6 408.71
-4 0 0
12:0 21.93 221.37 23.6 340.59
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
12:3 21.73 -51.08 24.86 323.64 lo c a l tim e h r
13:0 23.46 442.77 26.26 357.54 Fig.(11): Instantaneous stored heat in the internal cylinder
13:3 27.46 1021.77 26.06 -51.09 of the storage tank for no load case
14:0 29.06 408.71 26.66 153.27
14:3 30.73 425.73 26.66 0
15:0 32.2 374.65 26.33 -85.16
15:3 32.46 68.119 25.93 -102.17
16:0 32.73 68.11 24.53 -357.6226

10-2-2009

Fig.(12)Water Average Temp. of Inlet Cylinder of The

Storage Tank for no load case

Table(1): Hourly Average Water Temperature and
Heat Stored in Storage Tank Internal Cylinder
for no Load 10-2-2009
REFERENCES
[1] Klett D.E.,Goswami D.Y.,and Saad M.T.,(1984 Aug.)"Thermal
Performance Of Submerged Coil Heat Exchangers Used In Solar
Energy Storage Tanks", Journal of Solar Energy Engineering,., vol.
106, PP. 373-375
[2] Khalifa A. N., (1999)"Thermal Performance Of Locally Made Flat
Plate Solar Collectors Used As Part of a Domestic Hot Water System",
Energy Conversion & Management 40, PP. 1825-1833.
[3] Shokouhmand H., Salimpour M.R. and Akhavan-Behabadi M.A.,
(2008), "Experimental Investigation Of Shell And Coiled Tube Heat
Exchangers Using Wilson Plots", International Communications In
Heat And Mass Transfer, 35, PP. 84-92.
[4] Duffi J. A., and Beckman W. A.,(1974), "Solar Energy Thermal Process
", John Wiley & sons Inc. New York.
[5] Lunde P. ,(1980)"Solar Thermal engineering, Space heating and hot
Water Systems", John Wiley & sons Inc. New York.
[6] Karima E., Amori, Faiz F. Mustafa and Sahar Majeed,(2009)," Solar
Water Heater With Shell And Helical Coiled Tube Heat Exchanger As A
Storage Tank", accepted for publication in Journal of eng., published by
college of eng. ,Baghdad university.
[7] Myrna Dayan, (1997),"High Performance In Low Flow Solar Domestic
Hot Water Systems", MSc. Thesis Mechanical Engineering University
of Wisconsin-Madison.
[8] Soteris Kalogirou;(2009);"Thermal performance, economic and
environmental life cycle analysis of thermosyphon solar water heaters";
Solar Energy; Vol.83; pp.39-48
[9] Karima E. Amori ; and Nooraddin Saad Jabouri,(2009), "Thermal
Improvement Of Solar Hot Water System Using Accelerated Riser In
Flat Plate Collector ", The Iraqi Journal For Mechanical And Material
Engineering, special issue pp. 244-257.
Fig.(11): Instantaneous stored heat in the
internal cylinder of the storage tank for no load
case