Marziyeh Ardforoushan - Ph.D Student Department of Bio System Engineering, Sahrekord University
Rahim Ebrahimi - Department of Bio System Engineering, Sahrekord University;

In the present work, an experimental and theoretical investigation of the energetic and exergetic performance of solar pond with circular cross sectionshas been carried out. The cross sectional area and depth of solar pond are 4 m2 and 1.5 m, respectively which was built at Shahrekord University in, Chaharmahal. During 11 months of energy storage operation, a data acquisition system was used to measure the temperature variations along the height of the solarponds and to capture the development of thermal stratification Thermal analysis of an experimental solarpond is usually a complicated task due to variations ofmany involved factors such as solar radiation, thermophysical properties of operating fluid, climaticchanges etc. An exergy model is developed to study the exergetic performance of the pond and its three zones in terms of exergy efficiencies which are thencompared with the corresponding energy efficiencies. Monthly averaged exergy efficiencies are obtained for different regions of the pond and compared with thecorresponding energy efficiencies. Thus, the highest energy and exergy efficiencies are found for July to be34% and 29% for the heat storage zone, respectively and the lowest energy and exergy efficiencies are found for January to be 12 % and 11 % for the heat storage zone.

Energy analysis; Exergy analysis , Solar energy; Solar pond