Abstract
Nanoparticles can improve the heat transfer rate when added to a base fluid. This has been the motivation for an investigation towards design of nanofluid solar thermal collectors as presented in this paper. Theoretically, the thermal performance of nanofluid solar collectors depends on the type, shape, size and concentration of nanoparticles as well as conventional parameters affecting the configuration of the collector. A genetic algorithm is used to find the optimum configuration for nanofluid solar collectors. The optimisation objective is the overall efficiency of the collector. Running case studies, it is shown that adding nanoparticles to a base fluid has minimal effect on the performance of the solar collector.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering (ICAME?15) |
| Pages | 480-485 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 May 2015 |
Bibliographical note
http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/22522/Keywords
- nanofluid
- nanoparticle
- solar collector
- flat plate
- configuration design
- design optimisation