There is still a clear potential of improvement of flat plate solar collectors. Though, if Swedish producers want to survive, it is demanded to put construction and production methods under a scrutinizing look.
The work of doctoral studies is a project together with an industry and will discuss the solar collectors of the future. The aim is that the project generates enough of knowledge to initiate a production where the know-how is putted in to practice with a production line. There will also be some prototype production during the project. The fundamental idea is development of sealed gas filled flat plate solar collectors, an idea which has grown many year at the solar collector company Solentek. This product has a potential, compared with the collectors of today, to be cheaper (both as singular product and with respect to the cost of an installation), be easier managed (fewer components, lower mass), get higher energy gain and get longer expected life length. The work contains moments from several disciplines:
- Thermodynamics – calculations (with Matlab) and measuring. Evaluation of different gases and geometries.
- Mechanics of material – thermal expansion and stresses in material (with finite element analysis)
- Solar collector physics – measuring of properties of solar collector, both in work shop scale and in whole system.
- Installation technique – design and evaluation of systems, as well computer simulations (TRNSYS), as well as measurements and evaluations of real installations.
In the beginning of the project, the development of solar collector development will be investigated in an international perspective, with respect to production methods and performance. The potential of performance is also included in this work i.e. usage of material, heat losses etc.
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