DETERMINATION OF THE OPTIMUM CONDITIONS FOR MAXIMUM SOLAR ENERGY COLLECTION OF PLANE REFLECTOR-TILTED SOLAR COLLECTOR SYSTEMS

The present paper presents theoretical analysis of the instantaneous, daily, and yearly enhancement in solar energy collection of tilted flat-plate solar collector augmented by a plane reflector. The shadow effect due to the reflector on the collector is considered in the analysis. A FORTRAN computer program has been constructed based on the analysis to optimize different operational and design parameters of plane reflector-tilted flat-plate solar collector systems. These parameters include reflector-collector system orientation and tilt angles, collector elongation ratio, and reflector overhang ratio.