Thermal and Cost Analysis of a Multi-Pass Solar Air Heater with Reversed Absorber and Reflector

Solar air heater is a major component of solar dryer. A model of multi pass solar air heater (MPSAH) with reversed absorber and reflector was developed. Exhaustive Study over the performance of MPSAH with and without reversed absorber and cost analysis was done. The performance curves show the effect of solar intensity on MPSAH with and without reversed absorber at constant mass flow. It was observed that the thermal efficiency of MPSAH is depending on solar intensity and losses when mass flow rate remain constant. At constant mass flow rate 26.90 gm/sec, the collector efficiency increased by 9% at average solar intensity 457w/m². Theoretical and experimental analysis showed close agreement. In addition the cost-effectiveness model has been used to examine the performance MPSAH with and without reverse absorbers. The air heaters annual cost (AC) estimation and annual power acquirement (AG) was analyze. The result is evidence for that multi-pass solar air heater with reverse absorbers and reflector is more cost-effective than multi-pass solar collectors without reverse absorber.