A CFD based thermo-hydraulic performance analysis of an artificially roughened solar air heater having equilateral triangular sectioned rib roughness on the absorber plate

Abstract In this article, a numerical investigation is conducted to analyze the two-dimensional incompressible Navier–Stokes flows through the artificially roughened solar air heater for relevant Reynolds number ranges from 3800 to 18,000. Twelve different configurations of equilateral triangular sectioned rib ( P/e  = 7.14–35.71 and e/d  = 0.021–0.042) have been used as roughness element. The governing equations are solved with a finite-volume-based numerical method. The commercial finite-volume based CFD code ANSYS FLUENT is used to simulate turbulent airflow through artificially roughened solar air heater. The RNG k–e turbulence model is used to solve the transport equations for turbulent flow energy and dissipation rate. A total numbers of 432,187 quad grid intervals with a near wall elements spacing of y +  ≈ 2 are used. Detailed results about average heat transfer and fluid friction in an artificially roughened solar air heater are presented and discussed. The effects of grid distributions on the numerical predictions are also discussed. It has been observed that for a given constant value of heat flux (1000 W/m 2 ), the performance of the artificially roughened solar air heater is strong function of the Reynolds number, relative roughness pitch and relative roughness height. Optimum configuration of the roughness element for artificially roughened solar air heater is evaluated.