Instrumentation And Evaluation Of Commercial And Homemade Passive Solar Panels

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 1359 INSTRUMENTATION AND EVALUATION OF COMMERCIAL AND HOMEMADE PASSIVE SOLAR PANELS Emin Yılmaz University of Maryland Eastern Shore Princess Anne, Maryland 21853 (410)-651-6470 E-mail: eyilmaz@mail.umes.edu Abstract The purpose of this project was to compare water-heating capacities of a commercial passive solar panel and a home designed passive solar panel. The home made solar panel consisted of six, 10 ft long parallel, ½ in. diameter PVC pipes with two headers and with no insulation. Both panels were placed on the east side roof of the author’s house, therefore they received solar radiation during part of the day. The instrumentation consisted of seven thermocouples and a computer data acquisition system. Two identical, 20-gallon plastic tanks, one tank on each panel, were used for water storage. Two sets of comparative measurements were carried out. For the first set, the PVC solar panel pipes were white; for the second set, the PVC solar panel pipes were painted in black. For the white PVC system the maximum water temperature in the tank was slightly lower than the commercial solar panel tank water temperature. For the painted PVC system, the maximum water temperature in the tank was slightly higher than the commercial solar panel tank water temperature. In conclusion it can be stated that a simple homemade six- pipe, black PVC solar panel is superior to an expensive commercial solar panel. Although water tanks were not insulated, water temperatures in them have reached to about 100 deg-F in September. Such a system may be incorporated into one of the MET courses as a laboratory exercise to demonstrate basic principles of passive solar heating, calculation of heat losses, optimization, manufacturing techniques, creativity, etc. Introduction Solar water heating systems are extensively used for domestic hot water and swimming pool heating in warm climates [1-4]. Some of these systems even use heat collected in the attic of a house due to solar heating of the roof [1]. Some systems use solar cells to run a water pump to circulate water [3]. Since sun-tracking systems are complicated to implement, most solar panels are fixed at an optimum angle. If the system will be used for year-long heating, usually the angle is set for the winter optimum heating [5]. Optimum angle is a function of the geographic location Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education