INDIAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS Received: 14-05-2020 Accepted: 19-05-2020 Published: 14-06-2020 Editor: Dr. Natarajan Gajendran Citation: Mehta P, Kumar S, Patel V, Joshi A (2020) Mathematical modeling and performance assess- ment of solar air collector. Indian Journal of Science and Technology 13(18): 1803-1810. https://doi.org/ 10.17485/IJST/v13i18.608 ∗ Corresponding author. Sumit Kumar Assistant Professor , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute, Mehsana, 384460, Gujarat, India sumit.kumar@gperi.ac.in Funding: None Competing Interests: None Copyright: © 2020 Mehta, Kumar, Patel, Joshi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published By Indian Society for Education and Environment (iSee) Mathematical modeling and performance assessment of solar air collector Pranav Mehta 1 , Sumit Kumar 2∗ , Vivek Patel 2 , Alpesh Joshi 2 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dharmsinh Desai University, Nadiad, 387001, Gujarat, India 2 Assistant Professor , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute, Mehsana, 384460, Gujarat, India Abstract Background: The use of solar air heater in drying has been increasing in recent years, because of their simplicity and economic configuration. Meth- ods: Design and testing of the corrugated solar collector have been carried out in the present study. The overall system was designed and tested at Gujarat Power Engineering and Research Institute, Mehsana, India (GPERI, 23 ◦ 31'37.4"N72 ◦ 23'14.1"E). Exergetic efficiency, thermal efficiency, and tem- perature outlet at the same mass flow rate and solar irradiance were the major parameters for the present study. The designed system was tested by varying the mass flow rate of 0.1075, 0.215, and 0.3225 m 3 /sec. Findings: It was found that the temperature of the corrugated collector was maximum at 92 ◦ C at solar radiation of 750 W/m 2 . Whereas thermal efficiency was found to be 65.10% the same radiation. It was depicted from the tests that the corru- gated plate performs more efficiently than a flat plate collector due to surface roughness. Applications: It is a good practice in a region where solar radiation is higher all year to implement this type of arrangement for the utilization of any solar gadget, and to enhance its performance efficiency. Novelty: it can be observed that collector outlet temperature in the semi-arid region of Gujarat was maximum at the minimum collector area. This should be the best design and thermal performance in a semi-arid climate. Keywords: Solar air heater; Drying; Collector outlet temperature; Exergy analysis 1 Introduction With the rapid rise in the population and the living standards, the world seems to engulf into a major crisis, called energy crisis. If this population growth continues at the same pace the condition would go from bad to worse. Te reserves of conventional sources of energy like coal, petroleum, and natural gas are depleting at a very fast rate to fulfll the demand of the growing population (1,2) . Te use of solar air heater has been increasing in recent years, because of their https://www.indjst.org/ 1803