Numerical Study of Natural Convection Heat Transfer in a Horizontal WavyAbsorber Solar Collector Based on the Second Law Analysis

Literature about entropy generation analysis of a wavy enclosure is surprisingly scarce. In this paper, aFORTRAN code using an explicit finite-volume method is provided for estimating the entropyproduction due to the natural convection heat transfer in a cosine wavy absorber solar collector. Thevolumetric entropy generation terms -both the heat transfer term and the friction term, were straightlycalculated. The solution was conducted assuming the isothermal boundary conditions of the absorberand the cover of solar collector. The results were obtained for Rayleigh numbers from 102 to 105. Thesimulation results were compared with a flat plate absorber. It was found that, with increasing thecosine wave amplitude, the collector enclosure irreversibility decreases.