Solar Energy Vol. 35, No. I, pp.

15-19, 1985

{~)38-092X/85 $3.00 + .00

~: 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd.

Printed in the U.S.A.

WIND-RELATED HEAT LOSSES OF A FLAT-PLATE

COLLECTOR
J. L. A. FRANCEYand J. PAPAIOANNOU
Physics Department, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia
(Received 2 August 1983: revision received 3 December 1984; accepted 21 January 1985)

Abstract--The heat loss from a flat-plate solar collector is measured over a range of inlet temperatures.
tilt angles and wind velocities while operating in a wind tunnel. The measurements are compared wilh
recent empirical relations for calculating top losses. While there is good agreement for zero or low
wind velocities, the calculations appear to underestimate the top loss when wind velocities exceed
about I ms-~.

INTRODUCTION

of collector the mean plate temperature as given by

the expression

The performance of a flat-plate collector is very dependent on the energy tosses from the top surface.
The calculation of these losses is not easy, and Hottel and Woertz[1] put forward an empirical expression for calculating U,, the top-loss coefficient. This
expression was later modified by Klein[2] and later
still by Agarwal and Larson[3], whose calculations
agree well with the free convection data of Hollands
e t a/.[4] and Randall e t a/.[5]. There is, however, a
lack of experimental data for forced convection,
and this has motivated the present work.

Tp -

T~n + T,,,,,
2

(l)

does not agree with measured values, although this

is a good approximation for all-metal collectors.
Here the mean plate temperature was taken as the
average value of six temperature sensors distributed over the plate surface. Tests were conducted
in a windowless laboratory so that there was no
insolation and a range of tilt angles and inlet temperatures was covered. The collector and the tilting
rig are shown on Fig. 1.
For forced convection tests the collector was
mounted in a wind tunnel having a cross section of
4 m x 3 m and a wind speed range 1 to .5 ms
Again a range of tilt angles and inlet temperatures
was covered. Tests were conducted mainly with the
wind head on to the collector although some results
were obtained with the collector at 54 to the wind
direction.
The wind-tunnel turbulence level was less than
1% and the blockage factor ranged up to 0.. 125 depending on collector tilt angle. Wind speeds quoted
below are free wind speeds measured by an anemometer upstream of the collector. The wind component parallel to the collector surface was also
measured at five points l0 cm above the surface,
and this is discussed further below.

EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENT

The collector used in this work is rather unconventional in that the back plate and water tubes
were formed in one piece by extrusion of EPDM
elastomer. This construction gave a nonselective
black collecting surface with an emissivity ~p of
about 0.94. The collector area was 1.85 m 2, and it
was mounted in a metal box with back and edge
insulation of rockwool and had a single cover of 3mm acrylic sheet. The collector contained 64 riser
tubes with the normal inlet manifold at the bottom
and outlet at the top. External water connections
were made by specially designed couplings containing temperature sensors and two orifice plates
arranged to ensure full flooding of the sensors with
thoroughly mixed water. All temperatures were
measured by thermocouples which were calibrated
against standard thermometers and accurate to
within 0.1C. Measured temperature differences
used in eqn (2) below were never less than 10C.
For free convection tests, hot water was fed into
the outlet and when conditions were steady, as determined by stability of all temperatures to 0.1C
for 5 rain, a test was conducted over a 10 min period
during which readings were taken every 10 s. The
measured quantities included water flow rate, inlet
and outlet temperatures, ambient temperature,
plate and cover surface temperatures. For this type

RESULTS

From the measured quantities the heat loss was

calculated using
Uz. =

- Too0
A(Tv - 7",,)

rhCp(Ti

(2)

Here UL is the overall heat loss (Wm z C ~), fiz

the mass flow rate (kg s - ~), CR the specific heat of
15

16

J. L. A. FRANCEYand J. PAPAIOANNOU

Fig. I. The collector on the tilting rig. The rig is constructed from 2.5-cm square section steel tube.
Inset: The plate temperature measuring thermocouples. These are attached by a light coating of epoxy
resin and covered by sticky tape.

w a t e r (kJ k g - ' C - '), T~, the inlet t e m p e r a t u r e (C),

To~, t h e o u t l e t t e m p e r a t u r e (C), A the c o l l e c t o r a r e a
(mZ), Tp t h e m e a n plate t e m p e r a t u r e (C), 7",, the
a m b i e n t t e m p e r a t u r e (C). T h e b a c k a n d edge losses
w e r e s u b t r a c t e d f r o m (2) to give the top loss U,,
T h e b a c k loss w a s c a l c u l a t e d a c c o r d i n g to Tabor[6]
to b e 0.93 W m - 2 K -~, while t h e edge loss w a s calc u l a t e d a c c o r d i n g to Duffle a n d B e c k m a n [ 7 ] to be
0.2 W m - 2 K - I .
F i g u r e 2 s h o w s the t o p loss as a f u n c t i o n o f
p l a t e - a m b i e n t t e m p e r a t u r e for a tilt angle S of 30
a n d z e r o w i n d v e l o c i t y . O n the s a m e g r a p h is s h o w n
t h e p r e d i c t e d t o p loss u n d e r the s a m e c o n d i t i o n s

TILT ANGLE (degrees)

Fig. 3. Free convection top loss as a function of collector

tilt. (AT = 28C). Measured

;
Predicted e
--

......

-s-(

....

-o

3
2

16

Plate-Ambient

32

Wind

T e m p e r a t u r e ('12)

Fig, 2. Free convection top loss as a function of plateambient

temperature.
Measured

x ;
Predicted . . . . . .
.

Fig. 4. Forced convection top loss as a function of wind

speed (AT = 28C). Measured at 10 o tilt
x
;
Measured at 55 tilt
A
A ; Predicted at 10 tilt
O
O ; Predicted at 55 t i l t - - ~

17

Wind-related heat losses of a flat-plate collector

using the expression due to Agarwal and Larson[3]

Ut

%o..

'- t g l

1'

~ ( T . + T.)(T~ + T~)
[% + 0.05N(I - %,)]- i +

2N+ f-

1]

Ee

- N
(3)

where
f = (1 - 0.04 hw + 0.005h.?)(l + 0.091N),
C = 250 [1 - 0.0044 (S - 90)],
h . = convective heat transfer coefficient due to
wind (Win - 2 C- i ),
N = number of cover plates, % = cover
emissivity,
cr = Stefan-Boltzmannconstant = 5.6 10 -8
Wm-2K- 4

It can be seen that the agreement is quite good

over the range of temperatures tested. For a fixed
(T v - 1",) of 28C, Fig. 3 shows the variation of Ut
with tilt angle S, and it can be seen that the expression (3) predicts this small variation well. For Figs.
2 and 3 hw in equation (3) was taken as 2.8
W m - 2K- t.
For the forced convection tests in the wind tunnel some of the data obtained are presented in Table
1 below and in Fig. 4. It can be seen that for wind
speeds above 1 ms-~ the top loss as predicted by
Agarwal and Larson[3] is low by as much as 40%.
The predicted top loss decreases with wind speed
while measurements indicate the opposite. In calculating the top loss from equation (3) the expression of Sparrow et al.[8] was used to find h,, the
convective heat loss due to wind. By comparison
the expression for h,,, due to Watmuffet al.[9] would
have produced even worse results, as is shown in
Fig. 5.
All the foregoing results refer to the wind incident at 90 to the collector, that is, head on. Some

Table 1. Measured and predicted [A-L] top loss as functions of wind speed and tilt
Wind Speed

(ms-1)

Collector Tilt

(De~rees)

Plate-Amblent

Temperature(C)

Top-Loss (Wm 2C ~)

A-L

Measured

30

12

4.44

4.50

30

25

4.88

5.00

55

12

4.34

3.88

55

25

4.75

4.66

lO

12

4.47

5.50

lO

25

4.95

6.30

30

12

4.38

5.52

30

25

4.86

6.32

55

12

4.28

4.59

55

25

4.71

5.45

lO

12

4.25

5.93

lO

25

4.74

6.83

55

12

4.04

5.27

55

25

4.47

5.87

30

12

3.84

6.72

30

25

4.31

7.43

30

12

3.50

6.50

30

25

3.94

7.55

55

12

3.38

5.77

55

25

3.77

6.30

18

J. L. A. FRANCEYand J. PAPAIOANNOU
Table 2. A comparison between the top loss (U,) at 4) = 0 and + = 54
S
(Degrees)
I0

30

55

AT

(ms -I)

(*C)

Ut(=540 )

(Wm 2C i)

(Wm 2C i)

20

6.2

6.35

19

6.59

7.91

21

7.1

8.1

18

7.2

9.1

18

7.5

11.2

21

6.3

6.0

18

6.6

7.9

20

6.9

7.5

18

7.2

8.4

17

7.4

7.8

19

6.1

6.0

18

6.5

6.9

18

6.8

7.2

17

7.1

7.8

17

7.2

7.2

tests were c o n d u c t e d with the collector rotated by

54 from head on, and these results are shown in
Table 2. It can be seen that there is a significant
increase in the top loss particularly at low elevation
angles.

DISCUSSION

It seems that the expression (3) does not account

for wind-related heat losses from collectors. The
first term in (3) appears to be dominant at least in
this work. and it is possible to alter (3) so as to give
good a g r e e m e n t with the m e a s u r e m e n t s by altering
the e x p o n e n t 0.33 in this first term. The present
w o r k shows that the e x p o n e n t needs to be a function of both wind speed and of collector tilt angle.
Empirically determined values for the e x p o n e n t e
are
f o r S = I0 ,
S = 30 ,
S = 55 ,

Ut(=0 )

e -0.09 + 0.32V - 0.03V-'.

e = -I.0
+ 1.96V - 0.83V-',
e ---- - 0 . 0 2 + 0.20V - 0.03V -~.

E v e n with this allowance for the variation of e,

eqn (3) is not a satisfactory way of predicting the

p e r f o r m a n c e of flat plate collectors, and perhaps

more fundamental changes to the expression (3) are
needed. In particular, no account is taken in (3) of
the wind incident angle, and the m e a s u r e m e n t s indicate that this factor is important. In practice, collectors are often set to face north (or south) at geographic locations where winds have large e a s t - w e s t
c o m p o n e n t s , and this aspect of wind-related heat
losses needs much further investigation.
As mentioned a b o v e , the wind speed o v e r the
surface of the collector was measured during the
tests. Wind speeds near the bottom were found to
be lower than the free wind speed, while wind
speeds near the top were higher than the free wind
speed. The finite thickness of the collector presents
a blunt leading edge to the wind and presumably
produces turbulent flow o v e r the surface. This turbulence is thought to lead to an increase in the heat
loss at the surface. The turbulent flow region on the
collector appears to be larger at small tilt angles,
leading to a d e c r e a s e in the heat loss coefficient as
the collector is raised more toward the vertical.
Again further investigation is needed.
It has been pointed out (by a referee) that the
expression f in equation (3) is incorrect and that

Wind-related heat losses of a flat-plate collector

Wind

74

speed

the correct version is given in an erratum by Agarwal and Larson[10] and should read

2 m s -1

P
?

19

f = (I + 0.04 h,, + 0.0005 h,,-')(l + 0,09IN).

This change does not alter any of the conclusions

of this w o r k and in fact leads to smaller values of
the top loss coefficients predicted by eqn (3). F o r
e x a m p l e at a wind speed of 5 m s - ' the " c o r r e c t e d "
predicted heat loss coefficient is 20% less than that
reported here.

5
I
8

I
16

Plate-Ambient

I
2/,

I
32

Temperature (C)

Acknowledgement--We are very grateful to Professor W.

Melbourne and staff of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University for facilities and assistance
given for wind tunnel tests.

7
I

Wind speed-

3ms -1
REFERENCES

6
5

I
8

I
16

I
24

J
32

Plate-Ambient Temperature (C)

7
Wind speed-

5ms"1

00 6
e4

~E

3
I

16

24

32

Plate- Ambient

Temperature (C)

Fig. 5. Forced convection top loss as a fuaction of plateambient temperature at collector tilt 1 0 ~ d various wind
speeds. Measured
; Predicted using Sparrow[8] - - - - @ - - ; Predicted using Watmuff[9] - - - - x - - - - - x - - - .

1. H. C. Hottel and B. B. Woertz, The performance of

flat-plate solar heat collectors. Trans A S M E 64, 91
(1942).
2. S. A. Klein, Calculation of flat-plate collector loss
coefficients. Solar Energy 17, 79 (1975).
3. V. K. Agarwal and D. C. Larson, Calculation of the
top loss coefficient of a flat-plate collector. Solar Energy 27, 69 (1981).
4. K. G. T. Hollands, T. E. Unny, G. D. Raithby and
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(1976).
5. K. R. Randall, J. W. Mitchell and M. M. EI-Wakil,
Mutual convection characteristics of fiat-plate collectors, in Heat Transfer in Solar Energy System (Edited
by J. R. Howell and T. Min), pp. 9-16. ASME, New
York (1977).
6. H. Tabor, Radiation, convection, and conduction
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(1980).
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an inclined rectangular plate. ASME, J. Heat Transfer
99, 507 (1977).
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Solar and wind induced external coefficients, solar
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56 (1977).
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