Comparison of Thermal Efficiency of Fixed and Moving Air Heated Solar Collectors and Modeling with Artificial Neural Networks

In this study fixed and moving air heated solar collectors (AHSC) were used. Moving and fixed solar collector's thermal performances were investigated experimentally. In the experiments, inlet and outlet air temperatures of solar collectors, radiation, air velocity, absorbent plate temperatures, outer surface temperatures of collectors and transparent cover temperatures were measured. The thermal efficiencies of both solar collectors were calculated according to the measurements. An artificial neural network (ANN) model was constructed for the thermal efficiency calculated from experimental data. Thermal efficiency values were estimated with ANN model. It has been determined that the artificial neural network model successfully predicts the thermal efficiencies of fixed AHSC and moving AHSC