LONG TERM TRANSIENT TESTING OF SOLAR COLLECTORS
The testing of solar collectors is usually carried out under a steady state weather conditions whereby the collector fluid inlet and outlet temperatures are maintained steady over the testing period. However, in the actual testing, it is difficult to obtain the steady state conditions required. This is, particularly, true in the tropical region where intermittent clouds usually occur. Following the realisation of the difficulties with the steady state test method. A few researchers have developed several transient test methods. However, these transient test methods have been derived based on the solar collector alone and the tests require a steady collector fluid inlet temperature during the test period. In actual operation, collectors are usually connected to a storage tank from which energy is withdrawn and it is operating as a system with varying inputs over a long period of time. The present transient testing method is developed to overcome some of the difficulties of the existing testing method and to obtain more representative collector performance characteristics. In this method, collectors are tested under varying weather conditions and collector fluid inlet temperatures.
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