Author : Mahesh D. Shinde and Nitin Korde

The most popular means of solar energy utilization is Solar water heating system because of its feasibility and economic attraction compared with other kinds of energy utilization. The solar water heating system can supply essential hot water which can be used for both domestic and industrial purposes. Enhancement in heat transfer in solar devices is one of the major issues of energy saving and compact designs. Nanofluids are the new kind of heat transfer fluid containing a very small amount of nanoparticles which are uniformly and stably suspended in fluids. Nanofluids are having high thermal conductivity than any other conventional fluids. Several studies have performed on circular heat pipe flat plate solar collector using nanofluids. In this study the thermal performance of wickless elliptical heat pipe (TPCT) solar collectors is to be investigated by using CuO-H2O nanofluid. The effect of mass flow rate of water and tilt angle on collector efficiency can be investigated. The results are compared with wickless circular heat pipe solar collectors.

Keywords: TPCT, Nanofluids, Thermosyphon, Elliptical heat pipe