Performance studies on solar air collector with longitudinal fins

The present paper deals with performance studies on solar flat plate collector with longitudinal fins. The solar air collector of dimensions 1000 × 2000×80 mm was fabricated based on solar insolation data of Hubli (15.3° N), Karnataka. The performance study has been carried out at different solar insolation, inlet air temperature and varied mass flow rate of 0.03 to 0.05 kg/s. The results show that at mass flow rate of 0.03 kg/s the exit air temperature and thermal efficiency is achieved up to 60° C and 55 percent respectively. The MATLAB based mathematical model supplements the experimental work.