Comparison between spiral and serpentine flow solar water heater

Abstract

There are different designs of the flat plate collector and each one performs a different thermal performance. The present work includes the serpentine and spiral collectors. The experiment was conducted in Duhok city in Iraq. The same material and dimension were used for the serpentine and spiral collectors. The absorber plate area was 1 m² and the copper tube length was 7.8 m. The galvanized steel plate was used with a copper tube and a black coating to absorb the highest amount of heat. Autodesk inventor was used to designing the shape of the serpentine and spiral to be the same length. Both of the collectors gave a good performance, the spiral collector raised the water tank temperature from 32 – 56⁰C while the serpentine collector raised the water tank temperature from 32 - 60.5⁰C. The thermal efficiency of the serpentine collector was higher than the spiral collector. The paper displays all factors that affect the collector such as wind speed, solar radiation, ambient temperature, and used material.