Effects of different collector’s area on the coupling of a thermosiphon collector and a single zone

• Published in: Energy conversion and management 2014-01, Vol.77, p.356-368
• Main Authors: Chargui, R., Sammouda, H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accumulators; Applied sciences; Collectors; Energy; Exact sciences and technology; Heating; Houses; Joining; Natural energy; Single zone; Solar energy; Solar radiation; Storage tanks; Thermosiphon; Thermosiphons; TRNSYS
• ISSN: 0196-8904; 1879-2227
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enconman.2013.09.059

•We simulate a thermosiphon collector associated to a single zone using TRNSYS.•We examine the temperature of water in collector, in tank and in single zone.•We study the temporal evolution of the temperature and the energy for 11h operation in January and 2880h operation in winter.•The system gives good results in all operating states.•The use of solar energy in the residential building is interesting. The novelty of this paper is the coupling between a thermosiphon collector and a single zone with the following details; a thermosiphon system (TYPE 45) which uses the solar energy as an unlimited renewable energy to produce the heat by using an internal coupling of a flat plate collector and a storage tank in a closed loop realized in TRNSYS. Consequently, the user simply utilizes TYPE 45 as thermosiphon ready to be run, and a single zone (TYPE 19) is a complex type which is designed for residential buildings that can be specified by the user in order to obtain an acceptable heating within a house. The user specified the characteristics of the internal space, external weather conditions, walls, windows, and doors. To facilitate this description, the parameters and inputs for this component are organized in separate table according to a logical structure. According to us, the choice of this model of thermosiphon coupled with a single zone can have multiple interesting engineering applications, in particular ameliorating the mode of the heating in residential buildings. Two flat plate collectors of aperture area of 6 and 8m2 are modeled. The solar fraction of the entire system is used as the optimization parameter. The temperature of the water in the storage tank, the collector’s temperature, the temperature inside and outside the house, the solar fraction for different collector areas and the total energy were also measured in 11h operation in January and 2880h operation in winter. The average solar fraction obtained was 85% and the system could cover all the hot water needs of a house of six people. The maximum auxiliary energy was needed during 11h operation in January and 4months in winter. The results show that by utilizing solar energy, the designed system could provide 40–70% of the hot water demands in winter.