Abonnement à la biblothèque: Guest

ISSN Online: 2377-424X

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-474-8

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-473-1

International Heat Transfer Conference 16
August, 10-15, 2018, Beijing, China

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THERMODYNAMIC PERFORMANCE OF SOLAR AIR COMPRESSOR

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC16.nee.022336
pages 7790-7803

Résumé

In order to transform the solar energy into the potential energy of compressed air directly, a novel solar air compressor is developed and tested. In addition to the air tank of 30 liters in volume, the compressor also included a solar heating device of Fresnel lens collector and a water-cooling coil inside. With periodical solar heating-up and cooling down, the compressor was able to inhale and exhaust the ambient air alternatively. As a result, the solar energy was transformed into the pressure potential and stored up. The system was experimentally studied under the practical solar irradiating condition in summer. In the experiment much attention was imposed to the thermodynamic relation between the heating and the pressure change. The typical test result has revealed that the air pressure increased from 0.1002 MPa to 0.1245 MPa as the system was subjected to the solar heating for 100 minutes as the average solar radiation intensity G=885W/m 2. Correspondingly, the wall temperature of the internal heating pipe reached about 272°. On the other hand, after the air discharge the pressure in the tank decreased gradually from 0.1002 MPa to 0.0895 MPa with the cooling effect of the water loop. It is verified that the solar radiation intensity was the most important factor to influence the performance of the system. The higher solar radiation caused the higher pressure and more air discharge, subsequently the cooling effect resulted in lower pressure and more air inhalation. The experimental results showed the engine efficiency of the compressor was above 50% in terms of the heat absorption by the air. Nevertheless, the general efficiency in terms of the solar energy to the power of the compressed air was very low. The causation is considered to be the heavy thermo-capacity of the tank as well as the effect of the cold start-up of the system.