Numerical analysis of the effects of a common and porous fin on the heat transfer rate and distilled water production in a solar desalination

Subject Areas : Renewable energy

Reza Shaabani ¹ (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Semnan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Semnan, Iran)
Hadi Kargar Sharifabad ² (مرکز تحقیقات انرژی و توسعه پایدار، واحد سمنان، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، سمنان، ایران)

Received: 2019-11-20 Accepted : 2020-02-19 Published : 2020-02-20

Keywords: desalination, numerical study, Porous fin, Common Fin,

Abstract :

Due to the fresh water shortage crisis in all around the world, many types of desalination systems have been developed. One of the most used type of them is solar desalination system. In this paper, a parametric study has been employed for investigation of the effects of mounting a normal and porous fin on the heat transfer and water production rates of solar still desalination. A fin with different porous intensity in different positions has been put in solar desalination. For modelling the mentioned desalination, the desalination geometry has been meshed and the 3D simulation has been performed using ANSYS Fluent software. As the result of simulation, putting fin in optimum position in a solar still desalination leads to considerable increment of Nusselt number which results in increase of mass transfer and fresh water production rates. In addition, employment of porous fin will cause decrease in heat transfer and mass transfer rates. Finally, the effects of adding fin on the vortexes in the desalinator and its impacts on temperature and mass fractions differences in various zones has been also examined.