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Solar Air Colectors for Space Heating and Ventilation Applications – Performance and Case Studies in Romania Climatic Conditions
1  University Politehnica of Bucharest, Power Engineering Faculty, Department of Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machinery and Environmental Protection, Spl. Independetei 313, Bucharest, 060402, Romania

Abstract: Solar air collectors have various applications: on one side, they can be used for air heating in cold seasons; on the other side they can be used in summer to evacuate the warm and polluted air from residential, offices, industrial and commercial buildings. The paper presents experimental results of a solar collector air, in climatic conditions from South Eastern Europe. The relationships between the direct solar irradiation, the heat flow resulted, the air velocity at the outlet, the air flow rate, the time of input in nominal regime of the collector and efficiency of conversion of solar energy into thermal energy are highlighted. Thus, it was shown that after maximum 50 minutes, solar air collectors, with baffles and double pass of air can reach 50 % efficiency for solar irradiation of 900-1000 W/m. 2The article also presents a mathematical model and the results of a computational program that allows sizing solar collectors for the transfer of the air, for their purpose to improve the natural ventilation of buildings. The article is completed with a case study, sizing the area to be covered with solar collectors to ensure ventilation of a house with two floors or for an office building. Also, the ACH coefficient was calculated and compared.
Keywords: solar air collector; heat transfer; ventilation; efficiency; case studies.
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