Hindawi Publishing Corporation ISRN Renewable Energy Volume 2013, Article ID 126234, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/126234 Research Article Performance Analysis of Flat and Rippled Wick-Inverted V-Type Solar Still Integrated with Drip System in Kerala Climatic Conditions T. Namshad, 1 K. R. Ayush, 1 K. C. Salih, 1 Athul James, 1 Suficker Ahammed, 1 Hashim Vayalilakath, 1 and P. U. Suneesh 2 1 M E S College of Engineering, Kuttippuram, Kerala 679 573, India 2 R&D Centre, Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore 641 046, India Correspondence should be addressed to K. R. Ayush; nahasnes@gmail.com Received 10 June 2013; Accepted 6 August 2013 Academic Editors: C. Koroneos and Q. Qiao Copyright © 2013 T. Namshad et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Termal aspect of solar energy is widely used in the desalination plants. Experimental investigation and mathematical modeling of inverted V-type solar still integrated with drip system are presented in this paper. Te experiment is performed in the Kerala climatic conditions (10.8439 ∘ N, 76.0328 ∘ E), March 2012 at M E S College of Engineering, Kuttippuram. A two segment still of 2 m 2 is constructed. Experimental investigations on productivity and internal heat transfer are analyzed. Te results indicate that the mean standard deviations between theoretical and experimental values are less than 7% (temperature of rippled wick), 8% (temperature of glass in rippled system), 11% (temperature of fat wick), and 7% (temperature of glass in fat system), an average for the working hours of the day. 1. Introduction Wick-type solar stills are widely accepted and are known for high distillate yield. Velmurugan et al. [1] have studied that wick-type stills show improved distillate yield compared to the conventional water flled stills. Minasian and Al- karaghouli [2] have experimentally investigated an improved design of the single slope coupled to a wick in order to enhance still output. Te energy absorbed by the absorber basin is mostly transferred to the water. As a result, water gets heated. In water flled system, early hour radiations are used for acquiring latent heat of evaporation to a greater extent, and then evaporated water gets condensed on the inner surface of the top cover by releasing its latent heat. So, most of the water flled systems show high distillate yield afer noon. Phadatare and Verma [3] have studied the variation of productivity with respect to water depth and have concluded that productivity decreases with an increase of water depth. Kalidasa Murugavel and Srithar [4] have conducted experi- ments on basin-type solar still with diferent wick materials and concluded optimized output using light cotton wick. Te efects of climatic, design, and operational parameters on the productivity of the wick-type solar still have been mentioned by Yeh and Chen [5]. Talbert et al. [6] and Tanaka et al. [7] have mentioned that the wick-type solar still has attractive performance against the basin-type solar still. In this work, a new rippled wick-type solar still integrated with drip system has been constructed; a comparative study has been conducted with fat wick-type solar still. A transient theory has been proposed to validate the ripple efect. 2. Materials and Methods A sectional and photographic view of solar still is presented in Figures 1(a), 1(b), and 2. As seen in Figure 1, water in the tank feeds into the still using a drip system, and the rate of fow is controlled by an external valve. Te basin is made of mild steel. Length and breadth of the still are given as 2.00 m and 1.00 m, respectively. Bottom and sides of the still