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ISSN Online: 2377-424X

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-474-8

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-473-1

International Heat Transfer Conference 16
August, 10-15, 2018, Beijing, China

PREDICTING DIMENSIONS OF A SOLAR POND USING INVERSE METHOD

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC16.nee.022793
pages 7435-7442

Abstract

Solar ponds are widely used in a plethora of important applications, starting from the desalination of water, thermoelectric power generation, dairy plants, space heating, crop drying, to name a few. In this paper, the cross section area and the dimensions of various zones of a solar pond are simultaneously estimated to ensure a given temperature rise inside the lower convective zone. The analysis is carried out for different levels of solar insolation. A forward model based on fourth order Runge-Kutta method is used to solve the relevant energy equations for various zones, and its accuracy is established against experimental and theoretical results reported in the literature. Bryant and Colbeck expression is used to quantify the exponential decay of the intensity of solar radiation at various zones of the solar pond. The upper and the lower convective zones are considered well-mixed, hence, in practice, the salinity and the temperature profiles remain uniform within these zones. However, a linear salinity gradient is maintained in the nonconvective zone. Heat loss occurs from the upper convective zone by virtue of surface radiation, evaporation, and natural convection based on the wind velocity. The heat transfer between the upper and the nonconvective zones, and among the non-convective and the lower convective zones is governed by heat conduction and convection. Further, the heat transfer within the non-convective zone is purely determined by heat conduction due to the halocline effect. For solving the inverse problem, the application of the genetic algorithm is demonstrated. The variations of the functional evaluations and unknown parameters over various generations of the genetic algorithm are demonstrated. The suitability of the retrieved parameters is ensured through a re-constructional analysis. The present study will be useful to select the necessary land area required to build a solar pond along with its pertinent heights of various zones to ensure the attainment of the required temperature in its lower convective zone.