Performances and numerical optimization of a novel thermal solar collector for residential building

A new flat-plate solar collector with high building integration was designed and a prototype of this collector was built. The implemented experimentations showed that the performances of this solar collector can be improved. A numerical thermal model using a finite difference and developed in Matlab® environment was validated. Then, a modelling of the complete solar domestic hot water system (solar collector+water storage+piping) was implemented. The performances of this system were calculated for various solar collector configurations as number and position of water pipes, air layer thickness, thermal insulation thickness… Three solar fractions are defined and used in the optimization procedure. An optimized solar collector structure is finally presented.