TRANSIENT THERMAL-CHARACTERISTICS OF A SOLAR TANK WITH TRANSPARENT FILM, MULTILAYER SURFACE INSULATION

The transient collecting and storing characteristics of a solar tank w ith a transparent film, multilayer surface insulation system have been examined both experimentally and theoretically by varying the number of surface insulation layers from zero to five. The results show that the solar tank with the single surface insulation layer yields higher water temperatures than the other solar tanks. In addition, it is foun d that the proposed theoretical model can be used accurately in predic ting the hot water temperatures within the solar tanks: the observed d iscrepancies between theory and experiment are always less than 1.5 de grees C, irrespective of the kind of solar tank considered. (C) 1997 E lsevier Science Ltd.