A CFD approach to evaluate the thermo-hydraulic performance of artificially roughened solar air heaters: A review.

A solar air heater is a system that transforms solar power into a form that may be used for a variety of heating applications. Researchers are experimenting to increase the heat transfer by breaking down the laminar sub-layer near the adsorbing plate. To break the laminar sub layer, researchers have applied varieties of roughness with different shapes and sizes. The experimentation with varieties of roughness leads to an increase in cost as well as effort. So, the development of high-end computational software can minimize this. Computational fluid dynamics has emerged as a very efficient tool to perform the analysis with less cost and effort. The paper aims to give a comprehensive review of CFD analysis that has been used by various researchers to evaluate the thermo-hydraulic performance of artificially roughened solar air heaters. This paper represents the brief details of the CDF model, CFD domain, different roughness, and system and operating parameters to achieve the optimal thermal performance of solar air heaters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]