Evelyn Lutz
Swarthmore College
May 2020
<aside> 📄 The goal of this project was to design and eventually implement a solar thermal test system for the new solar engineering laboratory. An extensive literature review of industry test standards and systems guided the objectives for this system. Compiling this knowledge, I settled upon a final system design that uses a parallel loading process to rapidly prepare and deliver fluid to the collector. MATLAB and Simulink were used to simulate collector behavior and determine equipment parameters. These specifications were used to make component selections and eventually purchases. Funding for this project was provided by the engineering department through Professor Arthur McGarity’s solar laboratory budget. Although the project was suspended after spring break, plans remain to build or incorporate parts of my design into the solar thermal laboratory.
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I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Arthur McGarity for actively supporting and engaging with me through this ambitious project. I appreciate his dedication and all the times our discussions ran long by an hour or two because of our shared excitement. Finally, I would like to thank the Swarthmore Engineering department for facilitating this project and providing an outstanding education over the last four years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fafr6Dh6GFU&feature=youtu.be&t=1068
The demolition of Hicks Hall to make room for Singer Hall provided Swarthmore College with the opportunity to design a new solar engineering laboratory. The purpose of this project is to design a solar thermal testing system for evacuated tube compound parabolic collectors. An advanced solar thermal test system will enable future students to research and refine thermal energy technologies.
Heat demand accounted for $50\%$ of global energy consumption in 2018, totaling $40\%$ of carbon emissions. Over recent years, photovoltaic panels have become increasingly popular in the United States while solar thermal technology remains underdeveloped (Figure A1). When it comes to heating needs, solar thermal is advantageous because solar radiation is directly converted to thermal energy, bypassing the intermediary energy conversion stage of photovoltaic panels [1].
At minimum, a solar thermal testing system must be able to satisfy the ASHRAE-93 testing standards set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers [2]. The system must maintain stable temperatures and mass flows, within $1^\circ C$ and $1\%$ respectively. Precise control of input variables enables experiments to determine collector parameters. These tests include:
An industrial control and data acquisition system can cost thousands of dollars, far exceeding the $250 budget allocated for senior design projects. Funding for this system came from Professor McGarity's solar laboratory budget. While I did not have the budget constraint of most projects, I was cognizant of cost throughout the process. The ultimate design reflects the balance of accuracy and precision, user-friendliness, and cost.