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Thermal analysis of flat evacuated glass enclosure for building integrated solar applications

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conference contribution
posted on 2016-03-24, 12:14 authored by Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde, Paul Henshall, Philip EamesPhilip Eames, Roger Moss, Stan Shire, Aggelos Zacharopoulos
In this work a flat evacuated glass enclosure is designed and fabricated and its thermal performance characterized for solar thermal applications. To investigate the effect of the thermal insulation provided by the high vacuum pressure in the enclosure, the heat transmission of the enclosure is determined under both atmospheric and vacuum pressures. The flat evacuated enclosure consists of two glass panes hermetically sealed around their periphery to a stainless steel spacer creating a cavity between the glass panes 15mm wide. An array of stainless steel support spacers are set between the glass panes to prevent the panes from collapsing under the influence of atmospheric pressure. A simple solar absorber is integrated into the enclosure and a novel co-centric port is designed for thermal fluid transfer through the edge spacer to the absorber. The assembly is tested under a solar simulator, and using infrared thermography techniques and thermocouples attached to the enclosure its thermal response is analysed. Results show that the greatest heat loss occurs near the support spacers on the glass surface, and near the inlet and outlet ports at the edge spacer.

Funding

The support from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through EP/K010107/1 is gratefully acknowledged.

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Published in

Advanced Building Skins

Citation

ARYA, F. ... et al., 2015. Thermal analysis of flat evacuated glass enclosure for building integrated solar applications. IN: 2015 10th International Conference on Advanced Building Skins, Bern, Switzerland, 3-4 November 2015, pp.256-263.

Publisher

Advanced Building Skins

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2015

ISBN

9783981205381

Publisher version

Location

Bern, Switzerland