Tilt Angle Optimization of a Flat Plate Solar Collector for Bauchi

Abstract

Conventional flat-plate solar water heaters are primarily of the fixed types which often are inefficient due to seasonal fluctuation in solar radiation received. This research presents the optimization of tilt angles for flat plate collector for water heating for pre-primary education pupil’s during school hours using Bauchi climatic condition. Design equations involving hour angle, latitude, declination, ratio of the average beam radiation and, characteristics properties of the proposed solar collector were coded in MATLAB programming language to forecast the categorization of the monthly averaged daily sunshine hour, optimal tilts, collector useful energy, and energy delivered, useful hot water energy and, dumped water energy. The meteorological data for Bauchi was used to facilitate and generate results. To enhanced total solar radiation estimate on the tilted collector surface, the monthly average index was based on a range covering all sky conditions of overcast, cloudy I, cloudy II, sunny I and, sunny II conditions. The results indicated an optimal tilt angle of 36° and 4° in the first and second quarter, while the third and fourth quarters were 12° and 42° respectively with annual tilt at 24°. The comparative annual useful hot water energy of the collector to the conventional tilt position for quarterly, annual and monthly tilt angles corresponds to 1%, 3% and 10% improvement. The loss in performance of a fixed horizontal collector compared to that of a collector with a conventional tilt is 7%. This improved technique will increase flat plate thermal collectors’ performance, minimize system use of auxiliary energy and reduce the material cost for development. To validate this improved technique, further work is needed to predicts, developed and experiment a prototype flat plate solar water heater with the proposed orientations.