Dynamic Modeling of Solar Air Collector with Thermal Storage Material

The investigation of solar air heater using SIMULINK tool to predict the transient state of solar thermal collector is presented in this article. The modeling is primarily centered on the solar crop drying system for small and medium scale farmers. Double transparent walls and sensible heat storage rocks were used in the modeling to aid the performance efficiency of the flat plate solar collector. The simulation was run with variable steps solver of relative tolerance of 0.001 using Dormand-Prince technique. The outcome of this investigation revealed the time trend of solar irradiance, effects of laminar forced convection on thermal coefficient, and early performance efficiency ratio. However, the model required improvement for it to accurately predict the system efficiency ratio after long period of operation.