http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp 176 editor@iaeme.com International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET) Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2017, pp. 176–182 Article ID: IJMET_08_02_021 Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=8&IType=2 ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359 © IAEME Publication THERMAL PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF DOUBLE FLOW PACKED BED SOLAR AIR HEATER Saket Kumar, R.K. Prasad and K.D.P. Singh Research Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, N.I.T. Jamshedpur, India ABSTRACT Solar air heater is a type of heat exchanger that transforms solar radiation energy into heat energy. Conventional solar air heaters have poor thermal performance due to high heat losses and low convective heat transfer coefficient between absorber and flowing air. Attempts have been made to improve the thermal performance of conventional solar air heater by employing various design and flow arrangements. Double flow solar air heater with packing is an important and effective design improvement that has been proposed to improve the thermal performance. This paper presents the performance and economic analysis of double flow solar air collector with and without packing in the duct. Effect of various parameters on the thermal performance and pressure drop characteristics has been studied experimentally. The study concludes that double flow arrangement with packing is economical and having short payback period. Also, the thermal performance of double flow solar air heater with packing in upper duct is significantly higher compared to double flow solar air heater without packing and conventional solar air heater. Key words: Solar air heater, solar energy, air temperature, heat exchanger, thermal Analysis Cite this Article: Saket Kumar, R.K. Prasad and K.D.P. Singh. Thermal Performance and Economics Analysis of Double Flow Packed Bed Solar Air Heater. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 8(2), 2017, pp. 176–182. http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=8&IType=2 1. INTRODUCTION Solar energy is the most important amongst the renewable energy sources due to its quantitative abundance, its capacity to overcome the energy crisis and environmental threat caused by the continuous use of fossil fuels on a very large scale. Conventional solar air collectors have poor thermal efficiency primarily due to high heat losses and low convective heat transfer coefficient between the absorber plate and flowing air stream, leading to higher absorber plate temperature and greater thermal losses. Attempts have been made by different investigators to improve the thermal performance of conventional solar air collectors by employing various design and flow arrangements. Dhiman et.al.[1] presented the counter and parallel flow packed bed solar air heaters theoretically and experimentally and investigated the effect of air mass flow rates and bed porosity on the thermal and thermo hydraulic efficiencies of the parallel and counter flow packed bed solar air heaters. Prasant [2] established the effect of differential air mass flow rate on the thermal performance of parallel pass packed bed solar air heater. Chabane et.al.[3] developed experimentally the analysis on the thermal performance of a