EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF THE PERFORMANCE OF A SOLAR COLLECTOR COOLED BY HEAT PIPES

This paper describes the performance of a hat plate solar collector co oled by a set of heat pipes, designed and manufactured locally to work at the low temperature conditions equal to that of flat plate solar c ollectors. Efficiencies and quantities of energy transferred to a wate r storage tank were calculated and found to be comparable to those obt ained by using a water cooled solar collector. The efficiency of such a collector depends on the time of day, solar intensity, ambient tempe rature and flat plate mean temperature. Efficiency, as the dependent v ariable on mentioned parameters, was studied, and analysed in differen t figures, then compared with the commonly used water cooled collector .