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Computational fluid dynamics analysis and correlation development for evacuated tube solar air heater with helically roughened tubes
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1 Department of Renewable Energy Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab,
India
JES, 025360019 https://doi.org/10.36922/JES025360019
Received: 1 September 2025 | Revised: 30 October 2025 | Accepted: 12 November 2025 | Published online: 25 November 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract
In this study, an evacuated tube collector (ETC) solar air heater employing a helical insert (HI) was numerically investigated. The ANSYS Academic Research 16.2 software was used to investigate the effect of geometrical and flow parameters on heat transfer enhancement in an ETC solar air heater roughened with helical inserts (HI’s). In the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, factors P/Dh = 0.5–2, e/Dh = 0.018–0.074, and mass flow rates ranging from 0.003 to 0.015 kg/s were considered. The influence of these factors on thermal and pressure-drop characteristics was examined, and empirical correlations for heat transfer and friction factor were determined using regression analysis.
Keywords
Thermo-hydraulic performance
Heat transfer
Computational fluid dynamics
Evacuated tube collector
Renewable energy
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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