Analyzing the Effect of Weather on Solar Evacuated Tubes

Overview

Previous research was conducted with a focus on if there was a inexpensive material that would improve evacuated tubes internally. From the findings it was determined that fiberglass insulation had the most detrimental impact on the solar evacuated tubes, whereas aluminum heat fins improved the solar evacuated tubes the most because of this aluminum heat fins were used in both the control and experimental sets of evacuated tubes to have better data collection due to shortened trial times. The problem being studied for this project was how different experimental contaminants, i.e. weather simulation materials, effect solar evacuated tubes. It was hypothesized that if the outside of evacuated tubes were covered by different weather simulation materials, then the final water temperature would be significantly lower. Data was collected through “side-by-side” trials, which means that the experimental and control tubes were run outside simultaneously. Running trials in this fashion adds validity to the conclusions drawn. Data has been collected for a proof of concept phase, the flour simulation phase, the light layer dust simulation phase, the heavy dust layer, snow, dense fog, and light fog. According to both a paired and an unpaired, two tailed t test the trial sets that had a statistically significant impact on the final water temperature were flour, heavy dust, snow, and dense fog. Light dust and light fog are both statistically insignificant. These statistics are in full support of the hypothesis. In conclusion, heavy amounts of weather have a significant impact on the data, despite the sun shining. Rain simulation could not be completed due to unforeseen problems with tubing and tubing couplings. In the future, more experimental contaminants may be added to test a greater diversity of experimental contaminants

Competition history

• AJAS 2019 Category not listed

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