Design investigations on solar cooking devices for rural India

Abstract

This article discusses the usefulness of Second Law analysis (exergy analysis) for comparing and optimizing the performance of solar collectors. Here, the exergetic formulas for both the parabolic and flat plate collectors are deduced and a parametric study is made using hourly solar radiation. The exergy output is optimized with respect to the collector temperature and different parameters are calculated. It is found that most of the parameters such as exergy output, exergetic and thermal efficiencies, stagnation temperature, increases with a rise in solar intensity for both the collectors. However initially, the value of exergetic efficiency varies in accordance with the solar intensity but declines further with an increase in solar intensity for parabolic collector.