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ISSN Online: 2377-424X

ISBN Print: 0-89116-130-9

International Heat Transfer Conference 6
August, 7-11, 1978, Toronto, Canada

ON THE STABILITY OF THE NATURAL CIRCULATION SOLAR HEATER

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC6.2150
pages 141-145

Sinopsis

A theoretical discussion is presented of the stability characteristics of the free convection loop representing the thermosyphonic solar water heater. The system consists of a flat-plate collector, a storage tank and connecting pipes. A one-dimensional model is employed with only one space-coordinate running along the circulation loop. It is assumed that the temperature distributions in the various components of the system are linear and that the flow rate is uniform. Stability of a steady state motion in the system is analyzed by using the linearized stability equations and computing the resulting eigenvalues.

It is found that the regular solar heater is stable when there is no energy utilization from the storage tank. There are perturbation modes which decay very slowly and oscillatory modes with period of the order of the time required to circulate the loop. For strong energy utilization the system becomes unstable.